Exiles on the Wind
by Fabius Maximus
Summary: The Cylons destroyed over 90 percent of Colonial civilian and military forces. Unfortunately, when you're talking about a civilization as large as the Colonies, that leaves a LOT of survivors. One group is going to go looking for Adama.
1. Chapter 1

_What has come to be known as the Fall of the Twelve Colonies scattered the children of Kobol across the galaxy. Some of them remained alone, making their lonely way to new worlds, while others found allies— brothers and sisters in misfortune. One of the most unusual cases of this was the rendezvous of of the Galactica fleet and Markson's Squadron which found themselves coming together, almost by accident._

_Of course, with what we now know, "accident" is hardly an accurate term…_

_Forging the Galaxy: A Record of the Activity of Post-Singularity Civilizations During the Colonial Era. _

Fall-1day.

Colonial Heavy Support Ship _Engineer Michelson_

Commodore Tomas Markson smiled as he surveyed his domain. As usual, the CIC of the E_ngineer Michelson_ was humming along. As large as a Jupiter's CIC, the set up was considerably different— the weapons fit was lighter, and the flight control station was more concerned with handling the numerous repair and support small craft that helped the support ship assist other ships in its squadron.

"How's the rest of the Division shaping up, Diane?" he asked his new XO. Diane had a small frown on her face as the petite woman surveyed the icons representing the other ships.

"Our intervals suck," she said bluntly.

"Not at all," Markson told her. "Remember, we need looser intervals in case something breaks loose."

_Poor Diane. We'll get you on a battlestar as soon as possible. _Diane hadn't been at all happy to be transferred to a support echelon. She'd even tried to see if she could get on the _Galactica._ Markson carefully controlled his smile at that. Diane and Adama…would not have gotten on well.

For that matter, he understood why Diane _hadn't_ been transferred. She needed a bit more seasoning, and maybe a tour of duty as an XO on a cruiser before she would be fully prepared for serving as a command track officer on a battlestar.

As he thought that, Markson checked the intervals himself and nodded. They were just in line for a support formation. First there was _Engineer Michelson_, while behind it, the heavy transport _Lushan Bay_ kept station. Behind that, keeping to its larger safety interval was the fleet Tylium refinery _Jamie Clintock._

"I'm surprised we don't have any escorts," Diane said. "This is some pretty valuable equipment."

_"_We've got enough firepower to stand off most pirates, and besides, where would you auction off the proceeds?" Markson said in a companionable voice. His ships had little in the way of ship to ship weapons— if an enemy was that close, things were very bad, but they were festooned with AA emplacements, to say nothing of the 12 MKIII Vipers the _Michelson_ carried.

Diana nodded, albeit with some reluctance.

"In any case, we'll be picking up some support fairly soon, if only for a bit. SAG-12 is supposed to top off their tanks before they go on the line." He shrugged,"It'll be good for some drill."

"Sir?" Tomas turned to the rating.

"Yes?"

"Message from Fleet— about SAG-12."

"Let me see…well."

"What is it sir?" Diana asked.

"A bit more drill than I expect— _Gilford Island_ has suffered a major FTL casualty. They need us to fix their engine," he chuckled. "Must be embarrassing for the captain— a nice new large cruiser and he goes and breaks it."

"Is the entire SAG staying with them?"

"For now at least. But according to the CO, the Gilford's FTL core isn't that badly damaged, should be a short patch job."

"Well, at least things won't be too delayed."

"True."

* * *

_Conner's Dream_ plodded along through the asteroid belt. Once, it had been the pride of Caprica Spacelines, a luxury liner that would treat its passengers right on the long trips between worlds— trips that could last months in the days before cheap FTL. But then the first cylon war had resulted in breakthroughs, and suddenly _Conner's ream_ was a relic of the past. The "Front" end of the Dream was a series of large rings, each one containing it's own ecosystem, with a slight bar running down the center. When the _Dream_ had first been commissioned, the habitats had been rotated to produce the feeling of gravity, but later owners, hoping to keep the _Dream_ competitive, had refit them with gravity generators.

It had been a doomed venture. The _Dream_ was too expensive to competed with the Colonial Heavies and other FTL capable ships, and not luxurious enough to grab the high priced clientele it needed. So now it served as the core of the Davanian Family Trading Guild.

_And doesn't that sound frakking impressive._ James thought. He had plenty of time— the Family didn't run full crew shifts, not out here, and so he was alone on the bridge. If anything happened, he'd sound the alarm and the rest would come running, for what it would help. There was the _Conner's Dream_ in the front position and behind it were the four ex-military transports, bought cheap off the Fleet in the drawdown after the war, and the closest thing he had to an escort. Right now the _Conner's Dream_ was making its slow way to the Saphara Transit facility, one of the larger asteroid bases in the Aeoleus Asteroid Belt. There they would pick up the kids of the far flung asteroid colonies and transport them to Canceron for the start of the school year. Then the family would take the money and use it to stock up on parts and equipment, as well as trade goods that the various asteroid settlements would need, moving back along the line until they had enough money to return to one of the planets and pick up more trade goods.

_For however long it lasts._ After all, the growing numbers of light FTL ships were now competing with them in the asteroid belts— why wait for _Conner's Dream_ when you could just go directly to the colony?

Nope, the end of the independent merchant was on the horizon, and sooner or later they'd have to scrap the _Dream_ and invest in smaller ships…which would mean becoming a short duration shipping company.

Truckers.

"Well, it beats starving," James said to the empty bridge and went back to focusing on his work.

He wondered how the belters would handle it— most of them came from Aerilon dissidents, back a few hundred years ago and they still didn't like their old home. Of course Aerilon remembered and the government knew how to nurture old grudges. Oh yes, they could do that, for all that it was shitty at providing education or infrastructure. Those grudges were the reason he was moving students— Aerilon had managed to convince the Colonial government that off world schools had to be certified, and oddly enough, unlike every other belt community in the Colonies, Aeoleus had never been so gifted— the only thing the families could do was send their kids to Canceron, not Aerilon. But sooner or later, Aerilon would start extending its reach into the belt… and Aerilon did not accept the doctrine that the belters were anything other than its own citizens.

* * *

"Jump complete sir," Diane said, "We're picking up their transponders."

Tomas nodded, looking up at the display where the icons of SAG-12 were revealed in all their (no doubt embarrassed) glory. Four _Thomas Burke_ heavy cruisers road on the outflanks. A multipurpose cruiser, the _Burkes_ had been called "jacks of all trades, masters of none." Tomas preferred them to the more efficient designs, which were incredible in their niche and useless anywhere else, because for some strange reason they always tended to get called for jobs that _didn't_ involve their niche.

Diane noticed his gaze. "Nice ships. Do you think the fleet's really going to scrap them?"

"I hope not— I saw the design for the new escorts…" Tomas made a disgusted sound. "They're half the size…you need mass, and lots of it to survive a nuke."

Diane nodded. After all, one thing civilians never seemed to understand was that battlestars and other military ships weren't so big because they needed the space for weapons and vipers, although that came into it, but because they needed the mass and room for the active and passive defenses that kept them alive.

The four cruisers were englobing the core of SAG-12, the large cruiser _Gilford Island._

"Nice ships," Diane said.

"You might try for command of one," Tomas replied.

"No thank you sir," Diana said.

_You really want to be admiral…_ Handling a cruiser required a different skill set than a battlestar, and for all their growing importance, it was an article of faith in the fleet that cruisers, even large cruisers, were dead ends— you might make it to commodore, but you'd never make it to Admiral. Tomas had his doubts, but he wasn't about to bring them up— after all, impossible or not, it was certainly _harder. _Shaking his head, he gestured at the com officer to open a channel.

"_Gilford Island,_ this is _Michelson _actual. We're here to fix your FTL drive— care to mention what happened?"

"Fraked if I know, sir," the captain replied. "We think one of the primaries lost pressure in the lines— the computer was supposed to abort, but…"

"It decided to protect a 10 cubit seal by blowing a million cubit core— I know the drill. We'll have you on your way in a bit."

Moments later, several shuttles left the _Michelson's_ vast bulk. The ship was, at least in cubic volume, somewhat larger than a Jupiter class battlestar. In fact, it had been built on the engines and internal frame of the battlestar design, enlarged and adapted to handle the multi-forge fabrication units that could handle repairing a destroyed cannon one week and rebuilding a viper the next. The ship even had facilities to create and form the incredibly tough (not to mention difficult and energy intensive to create) composite alloys that made up a warships armor. While the engineering corps claim of being able to build a battlestar from the keel up was an exaggeration, it was not as great a one as some believed.

For now however, the engineers would have to go over and find out what was wrong before any thing else could be done. The lack of any detailed diagnostic was not a good sign, Tomas knew. The computer should have been able to tell them what was wrong, after all.

_Damn shame, that it's probably going to be a blot in the Captain's copybook. _It wasn't supposed to be, of course, but the higher up in rank you got the more competition you faced for your next promotion…so even minor errors could hold you back permanently. All anyone wanted to do to understand _that_ was to look at Adama's career. _Still,_ he thought looking at the visual image on the CIC screens, _that's a damned fine ship._ The large cruiser class had been designed after the Valkyrie proved… if not insufficient, at least not suited to all of its suggested missions. At about the same size of the small battlestar, the _Gilford Island_ was oriented around multi-role options. It's heavy weapons fit allowed it to match most other ships its size, while it's mission pods included both cannon mounts and a pair of small flight decks. Markson had heard viper pilots complaining about the cramped access way, but the fact was the large cruisers, at least this version, weren't intended to depend on vipers, but their cannon and missiles and the flight decks were smaller to make room for the pod's cannon armament.

_Which is why the peacetime airgroup only includes 36 vipers._ More raptors, gunships and shuttles, of course as befitted the class' general purpose function, but a combat landing of even 36 viper's could be… problematic, never mind the likely problems you'd face with a full warload of 72 vipers.

"Sir," Diane said, "Fleet also wants us to top off _General_ _Aland's_ tanks."

"A troop ship?" Tomas looked over at Diane. "That's a bit interesting. Why no warning?"

"They want them prepped— our friend Tom Zarek is going to get out in a few weeks and there's always the chance of…" Diane shrugged.

Tomas nodded. Tom Zarek was something of a notorious figure in the Colonies… but officially his parole hearing was completely ordinary.

_So we're refueling a troopship here, so that it can jump in if need be, without making it seem obvious. Gotta love politics._

"Are they meeting us here?"

"ETA 12 hours."

"Well, hopefully we'll get our problems with the FTL ironed out."

TBC

_Author's notes:_

This story is the last in the three stories involving Colonial exiles. Each one will have a different ending, but fair warning, _this_ one involves another group teaming up with the Galactica.


	2. And the Rock Cried Out

_Where are they?_

_Everyone asks that- where are the other aliens? The religious thinkers would have us believe that there are none, that the Lords of Kobol are the sole sentient beings in the Universe. But there is a better answer- look at how far we have come, how far the Lords came. What of a species that was at the level we currently enjoy 100,000 or a million years ago. Where are they _now?_ Would we even recognize them? The priests speak of our gods...and yet their may be beings out there who would be gods _to_ our gods..._

_Preface to: Life and the Sea of Stars. The book was banned in many parts of the Colonies for blasphemy. _

* * *

"The Hell?" James said to himself. They'd made good time to the transfer point and now had students and their families on board the _Dream. _The transports had loaded up with some contract workers returning, along with the refined metals that were the belt's lifeblood. He'd been warming up the FTL's in preparation for the rest of the bridge crew to arrive (even on a ship like the _Dream_, you had at least the navigator and captain on hand for an FTL jump), when the communication's panel had given an unnerving buzz.

_That's a priority Colonial Military code. Crap. Is someone yanking our chain?_ James wandered over to the console, holding his cup of tea. He pulled the print out and started to read…and felt the blood start to drain from his face.

TO ALL CIVILIAN SHIPS

A MAJOR CYLON ATTACK HAS BEEN LAUNCHED AGAINST THE COLONIES. CURRENTLY, MOST HOMEWORLDS REPORT SOME LEVEL OF ATTACK, INCLUDING THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AGAINST CIVILIAN AND MILITARY TARGETS. BY ORDER OF THE COLONIAL MILITARY, ALL CIVILIAN CRAFT ARE TO REMAIN CLEAR OF CLOSE ORBITAL SPACE. ANY SHIP DISOBEYING THESE ORDERS MAY BE FIRED ON BY COLONIAL MILITARY CRAFT WITHOUT ANY FURTHER WARNING.

THIS IS NO DRILL.

RPT: THIS IS NO DRILL.

Unnoticed, his tea cup hit the floor and shattered as James dove for the intercom.

* * *

Tomas gritted his teeth as he listened to the other commanders.

"The _Gilford Island_ is still without an FTL capability captain," he said, "which means that your cruisers must remain here. Not only that, but my units will be needed to repair damaged ships, which means I need _you_ here to protect them from wandering cylons."

"Sir, the _Gilford_ can still defend these units…" Captain Wilcox of the _Gilford_ said. His voice was tense, but not panicked.

Tomas shook his head. "Negative. That means you can't _run _and so I need as much firepower here as I can have." He paused. "Look, all five of your ships are equal to about two or three battlestars…and that's not going to sway the fight."

"Sir?"

"Yes?" Tomas said, covering the handset.

"Another report… four combat viper squadrons went dark just as they were about to intercept bogies over Tauron."

"Frak…" _That makes six reports. Nobody has that kind of bad luck. _"Any reports from them?"

"No sir. They went completely dark…"

"Understood." Tomas paused for a moment, then went back to the captains.

"Have you all had the CNP upgrade?"

"Yes sir," Wilcox paused. "You've been getting the same reports."

"Yah. Pull it."

"Sir that's going to force us to go to a clean back up…"

"I don't care. Nobody has their fighters just turn off like that. Nobody has battlestars suffering complete system failures…unless the one thing that interlinks all systems is compromised."

"Yes sir…we'll be less effective for a while…"

"Understood." _And that FTL error may have saved us— we're _not_ where the fleet planned for us to be._ Tomas tried to keep from panicking, but the CNP program was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Colonial Military…and if the cyolons had compromised that… there was no telling what they knew. His finger shot out and opened a comline to the _General Aland._

"_Aland Actual, go." _

"Colonel," Tomas said quickly, "You haven't been upgraded with the CNP yet, have you?"

"What, and give a marine ship your newest toys?" the colonel's voice was calmer than the other commanders, but then Colonel Neil was an old warhorse.

"Good. I need you to get your vipers out and form a CAP— only vipers that haven't had the CNP, understand?"

"Understood."

"Diane, send to the fleet— believe CNP program has been compromised."

"They already know," Diane said, face pale. "Nagala's ordered all ships to reboot and disconnect their systems."

_Which means combat efficiency is going to suck big stinky ones. _The CNP was designed to reduce the number of crew needed and now they were going to have to be running their ships the old fashioned way.

"Sir," Diane finally said and he heard her voice tremble.

"Yes captain?"

"President Adar has offered an unconditional surrender."

"Has there been any response?"

"None sir. The attacks are continuing."

_Continuing. Nice way to say they're still butchering our people with nukes. _

_"_Okay, once we get _Gilford_ up and running again, I want a list of places we can make a difference. Get on FLTCOM and find out what battlestars are damaged and what ones we can get back into the fight."

"Yessir."

* * *

_Conner's Dream_

It was strange how quickly a normal day could turn into an utter nightmare.

The captain had ordered them to turn around and head back to the station. When James had asked why, Captain Zyrus barked "Because I fraking told you to!"

James couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Zyrus raise his voice.

A few moments later, Zyrus looked over at the younger man and shook his head sadly.

"Son, the cylons aren't bombing military bases, they're nuking cities. They're not here to conquer us but to kill us…and the fleet's losing."

"Si-how can you say that?"

Zyrus gave a bitter laugh and pointed at the com panel, its channels full of increasingly hysterical statements, half of them contradicting the other half. "Adar offered to surrender and you don't do that unless you have no choice…and they evidently didn't accept it." He paused, and shook his head. "And if there were functioning fleet units out there— or enough to help us, we'd be getting orders where to go. We haven't. Not from Picon, not from Caprica, not from the in system traffic control authorities… and that means they're probably either dead or in no condition to help us."

"So why are we-"

"Because a single fraking raider with nukes could kill every person at the station. We go back, we gather all the people we can and we find a place to hide out." Zyrus frowned. "Get the boys down to the loading decks. WE take everyone we can, and what food and supplies we can. Anyone tries to cut in line, shoot 'em."

"Sh-"

"Let a panic get started and we'll be lucky if some damn fool doesn't decompress the ship and save the cylons the trouble."

James nodded as they prepared for the short jump.

When the jump ended, James blinked at the chaos around the station. It seemed like half the ships in the Colonies had come there.

"We're getting com traffic." The com officer said.

"The station?"

"No…Canceron Patrol."

"Put 'em on." Zyrus said. James saw the two white and gold paint jobs of the Canceron Patrol ships— a pocket battlestar and High Endurance Cutter.

"_Conner's Dream_, this is Commander Ralan, CMS _Defender, _we need you to start loading people as quickly as you can."

"Understood. What's the status of the fleet?"

"Mostly gone— Admiral Nagala is trying to mount a defense at Virgon… but I don't think it's going to work. They hammered us but good."

Zyrus nodded soberly. "Understood _Defender,_ we'll get them on board."

_"Dream… _you're a civvie, with civvie armor. If the cylons appear, the private security forces and our fighters can't hold them. Undock and jump, even if you have people still boarding."

"Understood."

* * *

"Sir, we have a mayday."

"What else is new," Tomas said, then shook his head angrily. "Sorry, that was uncalled for. What is it?"

"Canceron Patrol— they have a large number of belters and ships from Canceron, but they can't provide security for them—they're asking Fleet for instructions."

"And?"

"No reply. We're the only formation that appears to have heard them."

"Understood. You take command here. I'm taking _General_ _Aland _and two of the cruisers. _Which may prevent them from openly mutinying. _

_"Sir?"_

"They're civilians. We're supposed to be protecting them. The _Aland_ can carry two divisions if you cram 'em in, and they're only carrying about 1200 troops right now." It was Colonial policy to not keep troop formations on board for lengthy periods of time— even the best simulation facilities couldn't keep the soldiers from losing their edge.

More importantly, the ship was big and heavily armored since the class was expected to enter into contested space. It didn't have the heavy KEW battery for ship to ship action, but it had more than enough anti-fighter and dual purpose KEW weapons to make any raider group very unhappy and it could probably handle one basestar— at least long enough to run away.

"Sir-"

"No time for protests— consider this your first command. It'll take us about 12 minutes to get ready so I'd best run…if things go poorly, it's up to you. Light a fire under the engineers though Diane— I have a feeling we're going to want to leave this place when I get back."

Less than 10 minutes later, by dint of breaking every safety reg in the book, Tomas was heading for _Aland's _CIC. The big marine ship almost looked like a battlestar— but it's _Pegasus _stylepods were larger with more deck space and elevators into the thick hanger and servicing area, designed to allow the fast take off and landing of combat gunships and landing craft, while it had far fewer launch tubes. After all, close air support wasn't about launching things fast, but being able to keep them in the air reliably.

_Which means we can cram as many as the civilian ships as possible onto the ship before we have to jump. _The two cruisers had their own hanger decks, but cruiser hanger decks were notoriously cramped and Tomas doubted they'd be able to get as many as he wanted onboard.

Colonel Bransan was standing by the plotting table when Tomas came in. "Commodore_," _he saluted, "It's good to see you."

"Don't get too happy— remember, I'm a glorified mechanic."

"You know what you're doing, which seems to be more than anyone else. Plans?"

"Jump in, collect as many civilians as possible, jump back and then head to the Oort Cloud to wait this thing out…however it ends. We can't materially contribute to the fleet, but if the information about the bombings is correct…" Tomas dropped his voice so that only Colonel Bransan could hear him, "we may be saving a healthy percentage of the surviving population of this system."

"Agreed."

"We jump in, with _Silas_ and _Tyan_ and get everyone out we can— but if heavy iron shows up, we run."

"Understood."

"Good. I guess it's time for my speech," Branson nodded and Tomas picked up the microphone, set to intership address. "Attention. As you know, the Colonies have been devastated and the war is not going well for us. This is our chance to save some of our people. We will not let our civilians down. All hands, Action Stations."

TBC


	3. No Hiding Place

_The cylon plan was brilliant…and amateurish. It made no allowance for error. It assumed that every assault would be perfect. It allocated a force that even presuming the CNP worm worked, was barely sufficient to cover the Colonial worlds, much less all Colonial space. Furthermore, the cylons were far too confident of the ability of a handful of agents to ferret out every deployment among a population of over 25 billion humans. Ultimately, it was these errors that allowed the survival of so many ships and the development of the Colonial resistance movements, both on and off world, that would prove so troubling to the cylon war machine. Of course, today we know that many of these deficiencies resulted from the simple fact that the cylon impetus for war was based on fundamentally illogical attitudes and objectives. _

_ A__n Analysis of The Second Cylon War_

_United States War College, 2055_

* * *

Canceron Military Ship _Defender_

Commander Jacob Ralen felt his knuckles turning white as he grabbed the edge of the plotting table. The _Defender_ was of Virgonese design, a pocket carrier resembling a small battlestar. The Virgonese had originally tried to sell it to the Colonial navy, but had quickly modified the design for sale to local defense services and even licensed PMCs. They were solid ships, with an emphasis on armor that made them heavily resistant to damage, along with a main battery that outmatched most cruisers.

_Which is wonderful…_ Ralen though to himself, except for the fact that the _Defender_ wasn't a battlestar. More importantly, the Canceron patrol wasn't trying to keep up with the Joneses in the same way the Virgonese navy had been. _Defender_ had a flight group of 24 MKIII valkyries 12 Seadragon class patrol craft and 12 raptors, along with shuttles and other auxiliary craft. Their consort, the CMS _Solace_ was high endurance cutter, with armor, but light KEW batteries, and patrol and rescue craft only. It would survive getting hit… a few times, but if a basestar showed up they were fraked but good.

"Sir?" the crewman's trembling voice let Ralen know the news was bad.

"What?"

"FLTCOM report. Admiral Nagala is dead and the fleet's been scattered. No other flag officers have reported in… Commander Adama has taken command of the fleet and is ordering all ships to Ragnar Anchorage."

"Well isn't that just wonderful. Continue boarding all civil-"

"FTL signature!" Moments later, the voice continued, now full of relief, "Colonial IFF signals— two cruisers and a marine assault carrier sir!"

"Put me on!" Ralan snapped.

"Colonial force, this is _Defender_ actual."

" This is Commodore Markson on the _Aland. _I hope you're not expecting the calvary because we're not it. I take it you're evacuating?"

"As quickly as possible sir. We've also got some other ships in from Canceron…"

"I see them. Okay, we need to move fast. The larger ships without FTL can dock in _Alland's_ lower bays…" _Thank god this is a marine ship._ "We'll worry about getting their people off and sorting the ships out later. Smaller ships will dock with _Alland_, your ships and any FTL ships while the cruisers handle guard duties. If the cylons show up, the cruisers will interdict while we jump out… Commander, if the cylons show up in force, you are to immediately jump for the coordinates I send you. I'm giving you _no discretion_ in those orders."

"I understand sir."

* * *

_Conner's Dream_

"Move it, move it, move it! If you're not on board by the time the cylons get here, we leave you behind!"James shouted. They were packing their ships,and thank god the _Dream_ had a beast of an environment plan, but now ships and shuttles were swarming to the troop ship and other ships with FTLs. According to the people James had spoken with, they might have as many as 12,000 civilians, belter and Canceron alike on the various FTL capable ships.

_There are over a million in this belt alone…_ but there was no time, James knew. In fact, according to scuttlebutt, some had actually decided to stay away, especially when the Colonial ships jumped in. James had no idea what they were going to do and honestly, didn't want to know.

He gestured at the last group to pass through the airlock.

"Anyone else?"

"No!" The man shouted back.

"Bridge this is James— station is clear, we can undock." James said as other crewmen slammed the hatch shut. The _Dream _broke free in a maneuver that would have had their insurance revoked in an instance, and started moving to a clear zone for FTL jump.

Then James' blood seemed to congeal in his veins as the speakers blared what he'd been fearing.

"ALL CREWMEMBERS TO EMERGENCY STATION. TWO CYLON BASESTARS HAVE JUMPED IN. STAND BY FOR EMERGENCY JUMP."

* * *

_Alland CIC_.

"That's it. All civilian ships jump. We'll form the flak barrier." Tomas frowned at the CIC screen. "Dammit, should have thought of this before. Order two raptors to Ragnar Anchorage— they're to check to see if Adama is alive and what fleet units he has. They are not to engage, and their primary orders are to _stay alive. _Return to our primary rally point." Tomas mentally kicked himself. He should have thought of that at the very beginning.

"Launch vipers?"

"No time to recover them."

The wave of cylon raiders dove for the civilian craft. Most of the FTL ships were jumping out and the drifting hulks of abandoned craft cluttered the raider's screens.

The cylon raiders noted the presence of two cruisers and a battlestar class vessel. The other ships were withdrawing, but without viper support, it was estimated that the attack would be successful.

Moments later, those calculations were called into doubt. The _Alland _was not a battlestar, but a troop ship with less than 25% of the ship to ship weapons of a _Jupiter_ class. But the Colonial military was well aware that the best place to kill a division was on it's troop ship, before it could land, and the mechanics of FTL jumps meant that even the best escorted vessel might have to fight off an attack. So while the A_lland _was lightly armed against warships, it had nearly _200_ percent of a Jupiter class Battlestar's flak batteries, along with a substantial battery of high speed cannon that could swiftly switch between flak and conventional rounds. Suddenly, the incoming wave of raiders ran directly into what seemed to be a solid wall of flak. Dozens disintegrated under the barrage, and under its cover, the two cruisers advanced, their forward heavy KEW batteries smashing into the first basestar.

"Basestar is taking heavy damage sir."

"Are the last civilian ships away?"

"Almos-sir, the _Private Wil!_"

One of the cruisers had been firing away when several raiders broke through the flak barrier and salvoed a dozen nukes in its direction. Only a few made it through, but as tough as the cruiser was, it wasn't a battlestar. The staggering, air streaming wreck that emerged from the fireball had lost half its cannon.

"_Private Wil, _withdraw immediately." Tomas said.

"Sorry sir-" the wireless wsa full of static and the voice wasn't that of the ships original commander. "We've lost our FTL drive half the crew…"

"Stand by for evacuation."

A chuckle came over the wireless. "Sir, I'm sorry but I don't think the toasters are giving us the time for that. You get the rest of the people out…we'll give 'em something to remember us by."

With that the cruiser started driving forward, pushing its engines far beyond redline. Tomas blinked at the CIC image, as raiders drove towards the ship, punching holes in its armor, incidentally breaking off the attack on _Alland_ and the other cruiser. But the _Wil_ didn't falter, firing every remaining weapon at the nearest, basestar, driving itself like a gigantic spear for the ships heart.

"The civilian ships are away."

"Jump when ready," Tomas said quietly. "Let's not waste their sacrifice."

"So say we all," Colonel Bransan quietly replied.

The last image as the _Alland_ jumped away was the cruiser smashing into the cylon ship, the two ships merging in a gigantic explosion that took nearly 40 raiders with it.

TBC.


	4. Searching For Our Brothers

_FTL jumps are hard on both the ship and crew. Ideally, a ship should have at least 6 hours between jumps, which allows for system checks, a cool down of the FTL cores and for the crew to effectively recover from the stress of the FTL jump. Long range jumps, out to the 5 LY limit are usually limited to no more than one every 24 hours in non-emergency situations. _

_In combat situations, jumps may occur on a more frequent basis, but it is important to note that in the long-term, crew and equipment stress will lead to reduced crew efficiency and the increased chance of various types of equipment failure. This is especially true of civilian ships, which are not designed for long-range or high frequency FTL jumps…_

_Colonial Fleet Manual: FTL Maneuvers._

* * *

Tomas was still gripping the CIC console when the A_lland_ returned to the rally point.

_I'm not a combat officer,_ he bitterly thought. The crew of the _Wil_ had paid for it.

"All ships reporting in."

"Understood," Tomas said in a quiet voice. "Prepare for jump outsystem, coordinates to follow." He turned to the com officer. "Find out if the raptors came back."

Moments later, the news came back from Dana.

"One made it back. They saw the last of the fight. Evidently the Galactica was escorting a civilian fleet and they jumped out," her voice had a hint of jubulation to it. "Better, the raptor got a basic heading and distance read."

Telling where a ship went in FTL was hard— you either had to have a ship present for the jump out (preferably _many more_ than one ship), or have ships close enough to detect the emergence FTL signature or the light speed radiation artifacts that appeared with the ship. Unfortunately for hunters, a ship either had to be in range at the very point of the enemy's emergence to detect the FTL artifacts or be in the right place at the right time to detect the spherical wave front of radiation— which quickly degraded and was only visible at a range of a few light hours in any case. The other solution was that gigantic arrays the Colonial Fleet had spent decades building, which were, Tomas was certain, so much plasma at this point. So seeing the _Galactica _jump out was a real stroke of luck.

"Where did they go?"

"Prolmar sector— the raptor pilot thought he'd screwed up the readings for a few minutes."

"Understood…"

_Gutsy move, Adama…_ A jump that far would throw the FTL's out of whack and need at least a few hours to reset them— you could have lots of short range jumps or a few longer range jumps and Prolmar…

_I can't risk moving that fast. We don't have enough ships and we can't afford to lose any…and in any case the Cylons are chasing _Adama_ not us._ Part of Tomas considered heading off in another direction, but he shook his head. The Galactica had no support fleet and likely no other warships. Adama would need him and Adama was one of the best commanders in the fleet. More importantly, it would give the civilians something to look forward to.

"Put me on, all ships."

"Yessir."

"This is Commodore Markson to all ships. I understand what you have gone through, but we're going to have to endure more. The Colonies are lost. We can hope that some, perhaps many of our brothers and sisters have survived, but at this point, remaining here will only result in our destruction. I have therefore decided to, without delay, move out and attempt to rendezvous with Commander Adama's fleet…" _Let's not tell them that _fleet_ probably means one battlestar and a bunch of civilians… "_and therefore consolidate our forces. For now, all ship captains will follow my orders or the orders of my designated officers. We will be surveying your ships for any needs once we have cleared immediate Colonial Space. I would like all ship captains to prepare a list of their crew, resources and civilian passengers for my evaluation. Be assured that your needs will be tended to. We must be strong. We must stand firm and not allow our sorrow and anger to overwhelm our good judgment. Whatever your disputes with your neighbors, they are human. They are your brothers and sisters and we must stand as one if we are to survive. So say we all."

"And that will hopefully keep riots from breaking out," Tomas muttered as he put the handset down.

"Maybe." Branson said. "I have some marines with police training but we've got a problem."

"I know." _Canceron was never a fan of military involvement and as for our _Aerilon _belter friends…_ He sighed. The government of Aerilon hadn't been shy about requesting Colonial aid to put down dissident movements and that had left bitter memories. Not just among the dissidents— more than a few Colonial sailors and soldiers had come to resent Aerilon for turning them into its private bullyboys and if things got tight… Fortunately, there was another way.

"I need to talk to the commander of the _Defender."_ Tomas gestured at the comofficer. "I'll take it…"

"Use my cabin. It's private," Branson told him.

"Good… I'm about to make my first command fleet decision. Lucky fraking me."

* * *

Inside Branson's spartan day cabin, Tomas held the handset up and waited for the connection to be made.

"This is _Defender _actual, Commander Ralen."

"Commander, I have a problem and I think you have the solution. First of all, technically, without the approval of the Quorum, you're a Canceron ship and not directly under my command."

"We can be attached under your command in time of war, and I'm willing-"

"No, no, that's not what I want."

"Sir?"

"Commander Ralen, presuming we survive over the next few days, we're going to have a problem that can be simply described as at least ten thousand people with a lot of rage and loss issues. We have no police. Now, we do have marines, but I don't think you need me to draw a picture for you of what might happen if I use 18 year old marines for police work…however, the Canceron Patrol…"

"Is a law enforcement organization…"

"Right. You've got people who are trained as police officers. You've got less than lethal weapons and more importantly you've trained with them. Now, if we get attacked, I of course intend to borrow your ships to keep us from getting killed, but I need you to help me set up a civilian law enforcement network in the fleet."

"What type of law? Military, civil?"

"Canceron to start with— you know just how much the belters _love_ Aerilon's system, so I doubt they'll be unhappy."

"I may not be able to provide enough people-"

"We can recruit from the civilians and those marines with law enforcement experience— but your people should be in the lead on this. I have an ulterior motive, of course."

"Oh?"

"As the military commander…I may have to make some fairly ugly decisions. It's best if we separate my end of things from the faces the civilians will be interacting with on a regular basis."

"I see. You have my complete support, Commodore."

"Thank you."

A few moments later, Tomas was back in the CIC. Branson nodded to him.

"Sir, we've got the initial jump coordinates."

Tomas nodded. They couldn't directly follow the Galactica, but they could continue in its direction. The fleet would keep to deep space, hopefully avoiding any cylon patrols. They had enough fuel for a good long run and enough scouts to hopefully find more. But for now, the main objective was to put room between them and the cylons…and hopefully find Adama.

"Order the fleet to jump,"

"Yes sir."

A few minutes later, the region of space was empty, the ships leaving the colonies for the last time.

TBC


	5. Taking the Long Road

CMS _Defender_

"So, ladies and gentlemen, that's the Commodore's request." Commander Jacob Ralen said. "We're going to pause for 12 hours after our next jump and I want LEO teams on every major ship."

"We have numbers?" Talatha Siam asked. The rangy woman was the head of the _Defender's_ forced entry team.

"About 18,000 civilians. We don't have to worry about the warships, they're handling their own affairs. The Commodore has let me know that we can have marine back up if we need it."

"18,000…" Siam said, frowning. She ran her finger down the list of ships. "We've got 30 ships… the biggest is the _Conner's Dream_ with… 5700 refugees, not counting crew."

"They can use the habitat zone-"

"No they can't— that's growing area and we need all the growing area we can get," one of the safety engineers said, gesturing at the data. "It's not like we're going to be able to come back and resupply."

"What is the life support situation?" another asked.

"It sucks great big daggit balls," Jacob said. "Most of the ships can recycle their water, more or less, but only a few recycle the organic waste."

The others nodded soberly. In an era of fast FTL, there was no need to worry about growing food. Most ships simply converted the organic waste into dried material which could then be sold as fertilizer. The problem was, that without the gardens, merely having fertilizer was useless, and the ship's onboard stores would not last forever.

"The military ships?"

"They've got some, their algae tanks aren't going to be able to make up the difference."

"Not to mention the health issues," Liden Conner said. The _Defender's _medical officer frowned. "Algae can fill your stomach but it's missing more than a few important vitamins. We have stocks…but we can't replace them, and if we don't resolve this, we're going to start seeing borderline malnutrition, however much goop people are eating.

"What's our time limit?"

"About 6 months— we could stretch it out," Conner said, "but given the stress people are experiencing I don't think that's a good idea."

"Can we make vitamins?" Another officer asked.

"Yes…but it would be harder than simply growing the root stock in most cases. Pity we didn't get any agro ships."

"Should we go back?"

"That's not up to us, but I'd say no," Jacob gestured at the walls of the briefing room and by extension everything beyond the fleet. "The fighting is probably over, so there are two categories of ships left in the Colonies. Dead ships and ships that are trying to stay hidden. Neither one benefits us, and the only reason we made it out was that the cylons were probably keeping their main fleet elements concentrated in case there were other battlestars. We go back and we'll be facing ten or twenty basestars, not a few."

The glum faces let Jacob know his point had been taken.

"So, the first thing we need to start on is inventorying everything the ships were carrying. We've got an initial list, but I think we should do a sight inventory as well just to make certain nobody's in error…or is hiding something. Secondly, we have to come up with a recommendation to the Commodore on how to handle individuals who were wanted for crimes back in the colonies…." Ralen continued listing what they had to do, hoping that nobody brought up the fact that it all depended on the cylons not killing them all…

* * *

_General Alland_

_The conference room certainly is nice,_ Tomas thought. He chuckled at the incongruity of the thought. _The end of the world, and I'm talking about people's decor. _

Well it beat running around in circles and screaming.

But it was true— the _General Alland _wasn't just a troop ship, it was a command ship, from which the force commander was supposed to be able to coordinate operations across an entire continent or world.

Which meant that Tomas could talk to his military commanders without forcing them to visit him— a very bad idea if say the cylons dropped by to say hi.

"I still think we should have remained near the colonies— the open systems or the cometary halo…" The commander of the _Gilford Island _said mulishly.

"We could but we aren't," Tomas replied and gestured at the map. "We don't know what's going on anywhere— it's likely that other units, pirates, local defense forces and that sort of thing are resisting, but it's certainly a disjointed resistance." _After all, we had bad scenarios and very bad scenarios, but even the 'very bad' ones fell short of our entire government being destroyed in less than a day. _

"So we could join-"

"No we can't. We can't risk the civilians and we don't have any safe place to put them." Tomas looked at the faces on the screen and nodded to himself. "If the cylons continue, they can destroy all human life in the colonies— they have destroyed our industry; _we_ don't know where their industrial base is even located. The best hope for humanity is that we join with the Galactica fleet, if possible, combine our efforts, and found a new home."

"That's a long shot."

"It is. But if we remain here, there's every chance we could be destroyed and a good chunk of humanity with us. The ones on the colonies don't have a choice in the matter, we do."

"They could still catch us…"

"Maybe, but we don't have to get lost for every long." Tomas said.

"What do you mean?" the captain of one of the cruisers asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Elementary math. If every couple has six kids, our 18,000 people are going to balloon out to billions pretty quickly— remember that there were fewer than 50,000 people who were brought to the Colonies by the Lords of Kobol."

"If we survive."

"If we survive, _and_ if we let our people have the time and peace they need. We can't win this here…but our children and children's children? They can come back."

"Do you think we can evade the cylons?" Colonel Branson asked.

"Hard question— we know they have tricks we weren't expecting… is easy FTL tracking among them? If it is, they can follow us wherever we went, but I don't think so…" _Because if it's true, we're dead. So no point dwelling on it._

"What we need to do now is to quietly look for _Galactica_. I know it's a long shot, but we we'll use raptors and cutters to cover the likely areas and see if they can pick up any FTL or real space indications of the fleet. We can detach one of the cruisers to give the smaller craft a longer reach, and I intend to keep the fleet to deep space as much as possible."

"We need supplies…"

"I know. I have an idea about that. Plenty of brown dwarfs, after all, so if we can find one we may be able to find an associated asteroid belt to mine for volatiles."

"Better that waiting to die," someone said.

"Got that in one," Tomas frowned. "We'll have to hope that they can't hit the fleet too much— some of these ships are not ready for multiple jumps." The others nodded. "Okay, let's get to work."

* * *

Commodore's Log: 40 Days Post Attack

_We haven't seen any cylons. That's the good news. The bad news is that we haven't seen anyone else. Granted, it was a long-shot and everyone knows it, but there's a sense of fear in the fleet that we may truly be the last. After all, the cylons could have murdered everyone else in the Colonies. Fortunately, the Canceron forces have provided an excellent service in ensuring that the fleet has an effective police presence. Most of our problems have been in the vein of nervous breakdowns and suicide attempts. There has been one violent rape— in my capacity as over all fleet commander, I convened a court and after the individual was found guilty, he was executed. I regret the loss of any life, but now more than ever we cannot tolerate violence against our own._

Tomas leaned back and rubbed his eyes. He'd transferred his flag to the _General Allard_ and now Diana had her command. It wasn't a battlestar, but then he didn't have any to give her. Of course, now they had other problems.

_Fuel._

Tylium wasn't the only power source the colonies had, but it was durable, easily processed and provided more power per ounce than either fusion or fission reactors, without the need for heavy shielding to keep the crew from dropping dead from radiation exposure.

And they only had about another month's supply at the current rate of expenditure. Already, Tomas had ordered that the smaller civilian ships be docked in the large hanger bays of the various colonial transports and the _Allard_ but you couldn't just eliminate using it. They were sending raptors out, but there was the issue of whether or not it would be safe to mine it.

_Which depends on whether or not the cylons are still observing us. _

The fact was that space was easy to hide in— both for hunter and hunted. If the cylons _had_ found them, they might be able to keep tracking them without tipping their hand, and a constant companion in Tomas' nightmares was the image of a dozen basestars dropping out on the fleet when it couldn't run.

Of course, without fuel, they couldn't run anyway and the periods between jumps were increasing. That likely meant the _Galactica_ was getting further ahead, even if they were sticking to a normal jump schedule.

If they hadn't been destroyed.

If they hadn't turned around…

If, if, if…

He looked up at the clock. 12 more hours until the _Corporal McKay_ returned. The cruisers weren't really set up for fighter ops, but they had abundant support space for raptors and other auxiliary craft, including the long-ranged cutters. Hopefully they'd find some tylium for them.

* * *

Cutter 23a

Cutter 23a was known as the _Lazy Bitch_ to her crew, relic of a difficult to track engine problem that had the cutter consistently refusing to accelerate. They'd solved that issue, but the nickname had stuck.

_Well it beats a raptor,_ Calla Millsdottor thought. The Cutters were larger than the raptor, with greater range, heavier armor and weapons fit, more sensors, and best of all, a cubbyhole bunk space. The official duration for cutter ops was no more than a week and a half, but you could survive, in increasing conditions of discomfort, for up to three weeks— four if you stretched it out.

Not to mention the fact that better sensors meant longer range and less of a chance of getting killed.

"Anything on passives?" She asked her EWO officer.

"Negative… we're… getting strong tylium readings though. Dispersed through the asteroid belt, but once nice big return."

"Well that's something— are you _sure_ there's nothing active out there."

"If there is, it's acting like a hole."

"Wonderful."

_Because acting like a hole is usually the precursor to jumping out and saying "hi!"._

"Okay…" Calla finally said, brushing her short brown hair in a distracted gesture, "we'll accelerate up, go dark and cruise past it and give everything a looksee on passive."

"Understood."

It was a risk, but not a _great_ risk. On passive, unless they'd been observed from the start, you'd have to close to visual range to see that the LB was a manmade object— or paint her with active sensors and that would let Calla spin up the FTL's and leave. There was always a chance of an unexpected collision with a chunk of something, but even the most crowded asteroid belt was pretty damned empty…

The minutes crept by, turning into hours. The LB was moving fast, but "fast" was always a relative term when you were talking about a solar system.

"Coming up on the primary return."

Calla nodded at the comment. "Get lots of nice pictures. Admirals always like nice pictures."

"We don't have an admiral."

"Okay, nice pictures for the Commodore, Mr. Pedant."

"Fine-Gods damn."

"What is it?" There was no answer. "Talk to me," Calla said.

"A great big hole in the ground— looks like there was a base there, but it's been creamed but good."

"What?"

Calla looked at the images being relayed to her screen.

"Frack a daggit. Let's get out of here and back to the cruiser."

* * *

_General Alland_

"And you saw no sign of cylons?" Tomas asked the captain of the _Corporal McKay._

_"_None sir, save for the remains of the base. We didn't land, of course, but there was no active transmissions in the system that we could detect and we left sensor buoys behind to make certain there won't be any after without us knowing about them."

"And the tylium?"

"Lot's. Enough to top off our tanks, that's for certain."

_Maybe three more years— call it two under combat conditions…_ More importantly, it'd be a win, and one they needed badly, for morale purposes if nothing else.

"How long?" Tomas asked the CO of _Jamie Clintock. _

"If the sensor scans are accurate… a couple of days." Clintock's captain shrugged. "If the base was active, they've done most of our mining for us."

"Good. Now, bear in the room question— was this _Galactica?_"

"They'd need tylium." Diane said. "Galactica was in the process of being decommissioned and between that and the civilian ships…"

"Good point— it means we may be on the right trail." Tomas quietly said. "It also increases the chance that the _Galactica _is still alive."

"We'll lose time if we stop to mine fuel," One of the officers stated.

"We'll lose time if we run out of fuel." Tomas replied. "And more importantly, if the cylons are chasing the _Galactica, _bringing the civilians into the combat zone is a bad idea… and I think they are."

"Why?" Diane asked.

"Nobody bothered to rebuild a fairly large base," Tomas said, pointing at the pictures. "My bet is that they aren't because they're dedicating all their craft to finding the _Galactica_ rather than keeping a limited supply of guards back at the base."

The others paused at that. Tomas knew it was thin— there were other reasons the base could have been abandoned, even for a human commander… _And how do we know the cylons still think like humans, if they ever did? Granted, they seem to _hate_ just fine…_

They could also have a limited number of troops…but that was assuming way too much from limited information.

"We'll mine the fuel. Keep a look out and have the fleet ready to jump," Tomas finally said. "Once that happens, I'm going to load up _Corporal Mckay_ and send her out on a long range sweep. We can't keep jumping the entire fleet that fast, but the cruiser's designed for it and one cruiser isn't going to help our defense that much… coupled with the raptors and cutters for wide area searches…"

"Still a long-shot." Diane said.

"Agreed— but maybe not as big as you think. If the cylons are chasing the _Galactica_ they have to have some type of supply chain. If we can find and track one of their ships, we might be able to follow them to where the _Galactica_ is."

"What are we doing to be doing in the meantime?" Colonel Branson asked.

Tomas got a broad grin on his face. "Building ships."

The room fell silent. Without losing his grin, Tomas put out some blueprints on the table."No, I'm not going crazy. But we've got belters, and a fleet support ship, but we don't have enough room to grow things or honestly for people." He gestured at the walls and by extension the fleet. "Half those ships are dinky little things that can't carry many people, drink _way_ too much fuel and will blow up if the cylons look at them cross eyed. But we can't get rid of them because we don't have the room. We're going to fix that."

"I'll be interested in knowing how," Branson said, the marine folding his arms.

In response, Tomas reached under the table and put a metallic cube on the table. "This is called metal foam. It was commonly used in our early space faring history because it's cheap— you take aluminum or some other metal, put it in zero G and "bubble" it with nitrogen.. The resultant material is light, fairly tough and decent for construction. It never became popular because once we developed effective tylium based engines, most of the benefits didn't matter anymore. Belters use it though. We build a hull with this, and use the ceramic sprayers to spray a coat of vaporized ceramic onto the outer surface— we can build it up out of almost anything, and we have a hull. Nothing that could land, mind you but a hull— we stick a light rode down through the middle of it, and we can install gravity systems to provide gravity or just spin it. We've got room— plenty of room to grow the food we need and more importantly room for people to run around in so they don't go fraking nuts."

"If it's attacked?"

"No worse off than our other civilian ships…" Tomas shrugged. "We could make ablative armor plating for the surface, but honestly that'd be better used to fix the damage to our warships."

"That's… where are we going to get the components?"

"We pick some of our civilian ships and scrap 'em—" There was an immediate explosion of comments, and Tomas waited until it was over. "Not all at once— you know that the FTL cores and engines are independent of the rest of the ship— we keep them, put a frame and socket arrangement around the ship, and then move it into the finished habitat section."

"And if the cylons attack when we're doing this?"

Tomas nodded at the statement. "That's the danger point— but I've got some ideas on that."

"Well, you're the one who did a tour with BuShips," Diane said. "But this seems risky."

"Risky is trusting to ships that were never intended to operate this long," Tomas said. "We can't trust two dozen ships— we don't have enough people or material to keep them all up and running— one of these ships can take the place of… well hell, the _Conner's Dream_ is carrying over 5,000 passengers." He paused, "More importantly, it's the difference between spending your days in a tin can in space, and having some type of real community— we may be in space for _years_ people— he'll, it's entirely possible that none of us will live to see a final planet fall. That means we have to make a community here."

"Ralen says that fights and depression related crimes are getting fairly serious on the civilian ships…he even mentioned he might need marines," Branson mused.

"Not that morale is exactly incredible on the military ships," Captain Wilcox said. "And there's only so much you can do with a Captain's Mast."

It wasn't a rousing sign of approval, but it was approval. Tomas nodded.

"Then, presuming the cylons don't kill us all when we mine our tylium, we'll send off the _Corporal McKay_ to look for _Galactica_ and start building for the long haul."

TBC.

* * *

Authors Notes:

You'll notice that there's some skipping ahead here. This is for a few reasons.

1. Not all fleets are being chased by the cylons to the same level as Galactica since they aren't the object of Cavil's obsession. Like dictatorships in the real world, ranging from Stalin to Hitler, having one guy in charge, especially if his head isn't screwed on straight, does not for highly effective long-term decisions make.

2. Out of story, we've seen the fleet being chased— that's the theme of BSG after all, so I like to do some different things. After all, space is very large, and easy to get lost in— so what do you do than?


	6. Rest and Revelation

Upper Port Landing Bay,_ General Allard_. 50 Days after the Attack.

_"LISTEN UP!"_ James bellowed at his work gang.

_Work gang, hah._ A couple of retired dock workers who at least knew what they were doing, some former bankers who didn't want to spend the rest of their lives looking at a compartment and some quiet teenagers who looked scared. All of them in worksuits with their helmets on, visors open.

_Be fair James. They're not spacers. They're Young Pioneers who were on a day cruise before going home to mom and dad…_ A few months and a million years ago.

"You've all volunteered," he continued. "Now, Butch and Jackson may be older than all of you put together, but they worked on orbital ship yards and they know their way around still." _And you can bet I made certain of that. _"So first rule— you listen to me, than them. If one of us says, 'bend over and go oogie-woogie'_ you do it_, because we've seen something you haven't and are trying to save your lives." James looked at them before he continued continued. "I'm not trying to frack with you here— we spent months in training before anyone trusted us in a _spacesuit,_ much less working on a project without proper safety certification. If you frak around, you will die…and if you don't, there's still a good chance you will die. And with that…. A little demonstration."

James gestured to the deck controller and they felt the gravity slowly decline. Until they were only held on by the boot magnets.

"First lesson, don't jump. Second lesson, even if you don't jump, you will be tethered at all times…and now for our demonstration."

James, Butch and Jackson went and got a large pallet floating in the air. Grunting the three slowly started to push it until it was drifting in a leisurely manner towards the others. James looked at the biggest teen, a kid who had supposedly been a triad prospect.

"Stop it Todd."

"You got it," the teen said and setting his shoulder into it, stared to press against the pallet…and then got a panicked look on his face as the pallet _kept going_.

"I…I can't-"

"Get out of its way," James replied. The pale teen complied and they watched at the pallet continued…before hitting the side of the hanger bay with a gonging sound.

"First lesson kids. Weight doesn't exist in zero G. _Mass_ does. You get pinched between two massive objects and you'll be lucky if the _only_ thing you lose is an arm. You need to be cautious. You need to do the checklists and not fluff them, because space is trying to _kill_ you. All the time. Especially when you think you've got it down pat and can auto-pilot a safety measure. That's when you die if you're lucky, and take others with you if you're unlucky…if you're _very _unlucky…" he paused.

Finally one of the girls stuck up a timid hand.

"Yes?"

"If you're very unlucky?"

"Then you survive and you get to deal with _me._"

He looked at them. They all looked nervous and determined.

_And it's not going to save all of them._

James dismissed the thought. Above all he couldn't let himself be paralyzed with fear. Gods help him, he was boss.

"First thing we're going to be doing is working to rip out everything but what we need from that-" He gestured at the heavy freighter further down the hanger bay. "The engineers will be handling the FTL and realspace engines— all you need to know about that is "don't touch." What you'll be doing is removing the extraneous parts of the hull, labeling them for recycling and reuse and then helping us store them…"

"But why are we in-" The girl stopped at James' look.

"Why are you in pressure suits? Because this is a great big hanger and while it doesn't happen a lot, sometimes you have an accidental or on purpose emergency depressurization. If there's a fire here, the Commodore isn't going to risk the ship so you can find your way to an exit. So you keep your suits on and your helmets fastened…

_And it'll also get you used to moving in the suits when we go outside… but you don't need to know that._ James caught a look from Butch and Jackson. _Okay, not all of you need to know that, and the two who do aren't going to tell the rest. _

* * *

_Engineer Michelson Lower Repair bay_

The _Michaelson _was huge, and nothing reminded Tomas of it better than the repair and refit bay. The ship itself was slightly longer than the _Mercury_ class battlestar, but wider and boxier— about twice the usable interior space, in fact, and it was taken up by machine shops, armor fabrication facilities, CAD/CAM units… The fabrication facilities on the _Mercury_'s were designed to let a battlestar engage in long duration patrols without having to stop for parts… the E_ngineer Michelson_ was designed to repair fleets.

Or build fleets.

"You know, there's some annoyance that you're not letting them modify the civvie ships here instead of on the _General Alland_," Diane said from her position by him in the observation gallery.

"They don't need that— the habitat ships don't need heavy armor and that heavy equipment they need we can fabricate on the _Allard _or here. But they need protection."

"No cylons so far."

"I'm not trusting in it." After they'd recovered the tylium, the fleet had jumped several times while the cruisers had scouted ahead. Eventually, they'd found what Tomas had been looking for.

The brown dwarf had been a failed star— still radiating x-rays and heat, but doomed to a long, cool decline. Around it there was a halo of planetoids, large and small. Tomas had waited nearly a week, with the raptors and cutters laying in wait, powered down, but no cylons had jumped in or out of the vicinity. It had an excellent advantage— the anchorage he'd chosen, where ice crystals shrouded the fleet, would be very difficult to jump _in_ to, but not difficult at all to jump out of. The heat and signals from their work would be dispersed by the star and its surrounding stations… which hopefully meant they'd have time.

"I'm not trusting in it," he repeated. "We've got a good refuge, for now, but it's time to take advantage of that."

"Planning on building a battlestar?" one of the engineers commented.

"Where would we crew it from?" Tomas said. "Nope, this is something from the first cylon war that the fleet always kept up to date— hell,it's a pretty popular merc ship." He gestured at the design table. "The _Jackson_ class."

"Good choice," the engineer said.

One of the civilian engineers they'd grabbed for the project frowned.

"I've never heard of it."

"The cylon war saw a lot of ships lost in the first days-" Tomas said. "Everyone talks about the battlestars, but there were never enough— so we had smaller ships and the _Jacksons_ were going to be small/midsized multipurpose ships. He gestured at the prints, "As you can see, the framework is hooked up to the FTL, drive core, and primary control and life support conduits, here and here," Tomas' fingers pointed to other points, "Everything else you can install after those are completed— need a multi-purpose corvette? You can get it. A strike gunship? Fine. Ditto for troop ship, baby carrier, you name it…and every component is small enough that we can fabricate it here."

"More importantly," Diane said, "The ships were intended to function with small crews because the battlestars were getting first pick. We can crew them without stripping other ships."

"Crew _them?_" The civilian said, "How many are you intending on building?"

"As many as I can," Tomas said. "The more flak we can throw up, the safer the civilians are. Not only that, but if we can build more than a few of these ships, we can strike at the cylons without risking the entire fleet. _Even if we don't,_ they'll have to hold back forces to deal with the threat."

"It's a fleet in being concept," Diane said to the civilian. "If I know the other side has interceptors, I have to load up some of my vipers for anti-fighter… and they can't bomb the objective, even if he never uses his fighters against mine."

"Okay..why didn't we see these in the fleet?"

"They're fairly common in the PMC's…" _some of whom may still exist…_ Tomas thought. He hoped so, the more trouble they were making for the cylons the fewer there would be out here. "But in peacetime, you didn't need to make the compromise so we went with bigger ships." _That incidentally had more slots for flag officers. _

"What about the upper repair bay?"

"Using that for general ship maintenance, side bays are open for anything else we need and stockpiling duplicated equipment."

"What?"

"We lose this ship we're fraked. So when we have time, the machine shops are going to be duplicating themselves— they can do that, after all there's not a lot of difference between a viper fuel control and a CAD/CAM control module. We distribute it over the rest of the fleet and I'll sleep a lot easier at night." He paused and looked at the civilian and military officers. "We've got time— how much, I don't know. But it is a finite amount. Sooner or later the cylons will find us or just get too close and we'll have to move out. We don't need big ships, couldn't crew 'em if we had 'em. But we need the ability to spread out our defense. Don't forget, we're on the clock. And we have to get stuff finished, as quickly as possible."

"Who is going to crew it?"

"Well, we have plenty of marines from the _Allard_…"

* * *

_Corporal McKay. _Day 64 after the Fall.

_I hate this,_ Captain Darla Vias thought. The _McKay_ was acting as the mothership for raptors and cutters, the smaller craft flitting out to every star within range of the jump and bringing back information. Others just went out and went dark, listening on passive sensors for signs of FTL jumps or anything else other than the natural sounds of the Universe.

Of course in this business, they could themselves have been observed by a silent raider, in which case the first they would know of it was when a basestar or three dropped in on them. The _McKay _was a tough ship, but the fact of the matter was a fight like _that_ would only have one ending.

"Raptor 223 is inbound ma'am."

"Understood," Vias said. "Anything to report?"

"A lovely solar system with a single gas giant…no sign of cylons or humans."

_Gods this is useless._ There were thousands…_tens of thousands_ of stars in the Prolmar sector alone, and the _Galactica _could have left the sector— if they were trying to hide from the cylons, what hope did their tiny attempt have of finding them?

_It's not about finding them, it's about the hope that we can find them— that outside of whoever survived in the Colonies, we're not alone. _

"Get set up to recover the raptors, and move to the next search point."

"Understood."

* * *

Commodore's office. Day 80 after the fall.

"And the new algae plants are managing to keep things from getting unmanageable, but we are facing some signs of minor malnutrition among the older members of the fleet." Commander Ralen said. "We've got hydroponics going wherever we can, but until the ships are ready we're still on the thin edge." He paused, "On the other hand, morale is higher than it was— the sight of the ships being built, even if half their components have been scavenged, is making people happy… and the ones in the smaller ships are dreaming of new rooms."

"They won't be much bigger." Tomas said. He could see _Hope _on the office monitor. They'd finished pulling the freighter apart and had pared it down to the jump core, the sublight engines and the minimum needed to handle them. Now, the ship was being slowly assembled. A single long core unit emerged from the engine and power section, nearly 750 meters in length with the spokes extending at regular intervals.

The habitation section would be fitted around the engines and control area— adding extra armor in addition to the foamed metal.

_Cold blooded,_ Tomas thought, but then better to lose a few than have the ship disabled and lose everyone.

Forward of those sections would be the habitat zone. Or rather two zones. The first "floor" above the exterior shell would have hydroponics and high density aquaculture while the inner area would be open to the "sky" actually the light emitting core spike and if you looked beyond that, the other side of the 700 meter diameter habitat ring. That would be where they could put their plants and even raise animals. Not as efficient…

_But these places may be our home for a very long time. _

Tomas smiled as he looked at the support ship, its bulk drifting along behind the growing _Hope._

_You can have battlestars. Leave me the workshops and I'll build a world._

"Hopefully once we get the aquaculture… but for now, people showing malnutrition get reduced work hours and I'll see about cutting more supplies lose."

"There's one more thing."

"Yes?"

"Well, the civilians had an…election and they nominated a representative to…convey his concerns to you."

"Really," Tomas raised his eyebrows. "And what are those concerns?"

"They're wanting input into the-"

"Nope."

"Sir?"

"I will take advice, and hell, running their own ships will take some of the load off us, but no civilian government with any authority," Tomas said.

"Why not, sir?"

"Because they really won't have it. The first time they decide on something that _I_ think is stupid, unless I'm so out there that the rest of the soldiers won't back me, we'll get back to the old question about votes vs. guns."

"They're not going to like that."

"They'll like it a lot less if I pretend to follow orders until they demand something I don't like." Tomas shrugged and poured a pair of cups of tea. "Gods Jacob, how do we even know it'd be their will? The people are spread out and who do we listen to? The people on the big ships? The small ships? The ones who yell the loudest or who we need the most? Set up a copy of the Colonial government giving the… what, 20 Virgonese citizens in the fleet a seat at the table? If it's a single vote, winner take all, that puts the smaller ships out of luck, doesn't it? All you have to do is pick three or four of the big ships and you'll have a solid majority." Tomas paused. "Do we even know if the vote was honest?"

"It…was… in a way."

"In a way?"

"It was mainly along the lines of do you _want_ a government, not who will run it."

"Ah." Tomas leaned back and thought for a few moments.

"I'll see the representative. Make it plain that first of all, any civilian authority will be determined by myself and the other military commanders, and secondly, _this_ government is only going to do one thing— present a plan for a civilian advisory body."

"That'll probably go over better than a simple refusal."

"It better, because it's all they're going to get."

_Hope Construction Site:_

"All workers, clear Ring 22," James' voice came over the coms. He watched and made a sight check of all of his squad before signaling the two work pods to slowly move the ring where the engineers would weld it in place. They'd had one death. Not Todd's fault, but an overstressed member had broken and sent a fragment right into his helmet— and out the other side. The other's had brought his body in, including one girl who started to sob uncontrollably once they'd put the body of her childhood friend down on the deck.

James had told the marines to get her off the deck before they opened up the helmet and she was still angry at him for that.

_Sorry Valise, but there are some last images of a friend you don't want to have. _The body had been cremated and the remains sent to the algae tanks… he hadn't been the first and the unit used for the processing of human remains was swiftly becoming a shrine, where the departed were not interred, but sent to become part of the fleet, serving it in death as they had in life.

* * *

Commodore's Office. Day 95 after the fall.

"So you see sir, it's important that the people have a voice."

Tomas, for about the sixth time, regretted agreeing to the meeting in the first place. It wasn't that Leeland Jakes was unreasonable. No, that would have been easy. It was that he was far _too_ reasonable. He had started out agreeing that the military needed to have the sole authority on how best to prosecute operations…

None of which calmed Tomas, whose mind was alive with images of fleet wide riots over everything and nothing.

"Representative Jakes… here's my problem. I agree that the people need a voice, but what voice is that? You've given me nothing but generalities…and I'm an engineer. _Generally_ doesn't cut it in my business. I don't want to know that the primary coupling is _generally_ able to take the load."

"How about we use the articles of Canceron's government?" Jakes asked.

"I sat in one of their Assembly sessions. The only difference between it and the circus was I didn't see any clowncars."

"That's its strength sir," Leeland said, politely but unflinchingly. "You're right, for the near term, we won't have any real authority, but getting people used to making the decisions they can make by arguing, screaming…"

"…throwing chairs at each other?"

"Ah, you saw that debate." Leeland smiled. "So did I. The point is that at the end of the day, the people feel _invested_ in the debate." He sighed. "And that's hopefully the difference between people thinking that if they're debating about the future, then the future is worth fighting for…and the other."

_I am going to regret this…but he has a point. _Tomas thought. _Besides, do you want to have to be the final arbiter every time someone on a civilian ship decides their bunkmate snores too loudly?_

"Okay. First, let's have some boundaries. If I agree to this, you don't get an input into military decisions. If there's time, the reasoning will be explained, but I'm not going to decide strategy based on a vote. Secondly, Commander Ralen will remain in charge of the fleet's policing services. If he needs them, he can recruit from civilians and he and I will regularly consult with you. We didn't get any judicial officers among the civilians, so trials will remain military in character." Tomas raised a hand to still Leeland's half formed protest. "I don't have a choice. I can convene courts during a time of emergency, but the regs don't let me _delegate_ that authority to civilians. Ralen can also convene courts but only for his own nationals and only if there isn't any higher authority, and for now, that's me."

"I see."

"Finally, in terms of economic policy… well everyone is just bartering for now, but if you come up with something better, so long as it doesn't damage the distribution of necessities, I'll be open."

"What about our food supply?" Leeland asked.

"That's getting tight," Tomas said honestly. "Not so much in quantity, but algae biscuits can't keep someone healthy forever. As you know, we're working on hydroponics and raising chickens and fish…but honestly, nobody is going to be worrying about needing bigger pants anytime soon."

"Ah-"

"Commodore Markson to the CIC!" The strident chime was echoed as the talker started:

ALL HANDS, ACTION STATIONS, ALL HANDS SET CONDITION ONE THROUGHOUT THE SHIP. THIS IS NO DRILL.

"Come with me," Tomas said shortly. Leeland didn't say a thing, just got up and followed the older man.

"Talk to me," Tomas said to Colonel Branson as the two entered the CIC.

"Raptor on outer belt guard duty picked up incoming FTL flash. A _big_ flash. Cylon fleet, sure as hell."

"Any sign they're looking for us?"

"No. Raiders are staying close to the main body…" Branson gestured at the images the raptor had taken. "Look at this, and this…"

"Hmmm…." Tomas frowned. There was a large ship that looked like a collection of discrete components, some of them already detaching and heading to the surface of a large, metal rich planetoid. "A construction and mining ship… pretty sure." Tomas frowned at that. "So, our friends are having supply troubles."

"I don't…"

"This is a long way from the Colonies and evidently their homeworld. They're setting up a forward resupply and refit base-"

"Sir?" a rating came up. "We just got another data squirt from the raptor."

Tomas nodded. Jumping in might alert the cylons, but sending a laser com link to a relay sat was almost impossible to detect unless you were directly in its path.

"Well…" he said as he spread out the newest sheets. "That _is_ interesting."

"Those are…the hells?" Branson asked in shock.

"This is a battlestar. Looks big, maybe… you know, this could be a _Hera_ class."

"Hera class?" Leeland asked, then ducked his head as the other's looked at him. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted."

"No, it's fairly plain they haven't found us. They've just come here for the same reasons we have. Plenty of raw materials. We're not dealing with an immediate emergency," Tomas said and then continued, "The _Hera's _were a planned replacement for the _Jupiter's_. Big quad flight decks, lots of KEW weapons, really powerful. Problem is, they came out just when they figured out how to modify the FTL to eliminate the need to retract your pods. The Flight II's included those modifications and a lot of others, and some of them were still in service, but the bean counters found out that you could buy one brand new Mercury for the cost of upgrading two _Heras_ and not have to worry about other issues like hull fatigue. This one looks like it came out of the bone yards—" Tomas gestured, "the KEW batteries are still covered by the anti-micrometeorite decom shells. Probably just did enough to reactivate the jump drive…"

"And the other ship?"

"Looks like a _Prince William_ class fleet support ship…" Tomas gestured at the domes on the top. "Environment domes on the top, repair and fabrication shops and storage below, along with a pair of mid-sized repair and refit bays. Perfect for a battlestar group on a long-deployment. Of course we didn't have as much of that after the war, and the navy started going for more single purpose ships and just letting off duty crew take a raptor to a Colony when they were on leave. Most of them were also put in the boneyards or bought by private concerns for scrapping or other jobs…"

"Why would the cylons need two of our ships?" Branson asked.

"Well they weren't adverse to using our gear in the first war… this might indicate that they're short of ships and are having to make do." Suddenly, Tomas slapped the CIC table, causing a few crewmembers to start as he barked a laugh. "And it means something else— the frakers haven't completely subdued the Colonies. They're bringing the ships here to an out of the way corner to refit them because they don't want to detail the ships needed to guard them."

"They can call in basestars fast enough…"

"Not fast enough to stop it if someone was going to send in nukes to kill them."

"You're going to destroy them?" Leeland asked.

"Why no," Tomas said in a happy voice. "We're not going to _destroy_ them. We're going to _steal_ them."

TBC


	7. Grand Theft Battlestar: Part I

The briefing room was quiet. Colonel Branson, Diane, the COs of the cruisers, and Commander Ralen were all looking at the schematic of the two ships.

"We have two problems. The first is that we cannot depend on killing every raider. That means we cannot just board the ships," Tomas said.

"Big problem," Branson said. "It'll take time to secure either one of those ships."

"Yep," Tomas replied. "And so that's why we're going to send a small team in, and jump them out to where we will finish securing them."

"Ho-" Ralen bit off his question. "You've got a plan."

"This is a boneyard _Hera_. It's systems were never networked, and that means that the secondary bridge has primary access to the drive. The other ship also has a secondary bridge, but you'll have to take the bridge to make certain the toasters can't override."

"Why would the Hera's secondary take priority?" Ralen asked.

"The assumption is that normally the people down there won't do anything against the commander's orders, but if the central CIC gets taken out, they may need to leave— quickly."

"So we infiltrate small teams…"

"And jump the ships out and board them at a second location."

"What if their drives are down?"

"Then we blow them in place, but I don't think they will be."

"Oh?"

"They had to be active to jump them out here, and if they need to move them again, they probably don't want to waste time going from a completely cold start."

"We're going to launch an attack." Tomas gestured at the map. "This is going to be a bit complex. First step, we infiltrate the ships— you have the stealth insertion landers. We put them…" he pointed to one part of the map, "here, boost them up let them drift in. It'll take about 4 hours, but with all the crap in this belt, they're not likely to see it."

"Unless someone else jumps in, or they go active, or a cylon happens to look out a porthole at the wrong moment. In which case the marines are dead."

"Agreed. This is a volunteer only mission, Colonel."

"And then?"

"Once the marines are on board, we wait. We have a raptor _here_ and the boarding party can lascom it if the ftl's are down. If they are, the boarding party remains hidden while we jump in with two cruisers, which should get the cylons to spin up the drives." Tomas gestured at the map. "For that matter, if they can take the auxilary bridge without setting the alarm, they can cut the data feeds and spin the drives up without letting anyone on the bridge know."

"And if they encounter cylons on the ships?"

"Not likely on the Hera and the _Prince William_ likely doesn't have a big crew, but if they do, unless they can immediately jump out to the primary boarding point…well they're likely dead." Tomas looked around the room. "We need to launch this op fast, before the cylons change the situation or move in more reinforcements. Can you have your people ready in two hours?"

"We'll do it."

"Good, we'll distribute jump coordinates for the rest of the fleet. The _Allard_ will handle the boarding operations at a third location." Tomas tapped the display. "Once we board them with the Allard's troops, we can clear them at our leisure."

"Could be a lot of toasters on those ships."

"Possibly. If there are too many we can always just nuke the ships." Tomas shrugged, "But honestly, I don't think so. If they didn't think this was a safe area they'd have more ships. They evidently do think its safe and so it makes no sense to have ground elements present in large numbers."

"Plenty risky," Diane finally said.

"Agreed, but unfortunately I think 'risky' is a pretty good definition of anything we do from here on out."

* * *

"So, this is a plan? Sounds like suicide." Corporal Jain "Jinx" Tammarand said as he loaded all the gear a deep space boarding party needed onto the stealth lander. Marines had all the fun jobs, which included carrying out insane plans cooked up by men who would be staying in their nice comfortable CIC.

"It's not suicide…it's just very risky," Christine Sanchez said. _She_ wasn't a marine, but an engineers mate, since they were going to need someone to start up the _Hera's _FTL drive. Presuming it wasn't stone cold dead. Presuming they didn't open the door and find the lost temple of cylons who needed Jain for a quick sacrifice to the microwave oven.

"I hope you keep that sunny attitude, when you're in space," Jain told her.

_What a fraked up operation._ Something like this was supposed to have days, even weeks of planning. "Do it in two hours?" Nuts. Shaking his head, he finished loading the last of the gear and got into the cramped transport, his vac suit making it look even more cramped.

"I've never been on one of these," Christine told him.

"We don't like random people looking at our stealth jobs," Jain told the engineer. Normally in fact, even on a marine ship, the Nightfalcons were covered by tarps and lingering too close to one, unless you had a good reason to do so, was a way to pick up unwelcome attention from the OOD. "Hopefully that means the toasters can't see us coming a mile off."

_Because if they do, we can't do much about it._ Stealth ships were hard to see, but stealth material made for poor armor and there weren't a lot of places to hang weapons. They had some missiles, but a dog fight with a raider would end in only one way.

"Okay, boys and girls, next stop, the _Hera," _the pilot said as the craft left the _Alland's_ landing bay.

Behind them, the rest of the fleet started jumping out. Good or bad luck,they wouldn't be returning. As their own jump warning sounded, Jain gripped the seat rests and waited.

* * *

It would have been easy to jump to the _Hera_ if alerting the cylons wasn't an issue. All the stealth in the world couldn't prevent a jump signature from tripping sensors and so the transport would jump behind one of the planetoids, then assume a trajectory that would carry it 'under' the target. Hopefully the cylons wouldn't be interested in yet another random object in a system full of them.

"Gear up your breathers." The pilot ordered.

"Now?" Christine asked. "We're not jettisoning-"

"We don't want a nice big cloud of warm gas to announce our presence," Jain told her. "Or a heat bloom when we open up. We'll be at ambient temperature all the way in… so close up unless you can breath vacuum."

_Comes of not even having time for a proper, cover everything, briefing, _he thought as he closed his helmet, waiting for the ship to start venting before they came out from behind the planetoid.

"Signal from Nightfalcon 4. 'Good hunting'."

_Yeah. Well, that was nice. After all, we're doing the easy job._ The _Hera_ after all, was hopefully mostly empty, which is why it was getting 24 marines and the _Prince William _was getting over 120.

And hopefully nobody could see them, because they couldn't see out— a Nightfalcon had no windows save for the pilots heavily polarized screens. Right now, a network of multi function lights would be mimicking a small asteroid, instead of looking like a dead black object that would immediately draw attention. Now that they were close enough for visual observation, trying to stay invisible was impossible, so they would go for harmless. They just had to not draw the wrong type of attention for the next four hours…

* * *

_The cylon raider had no name. It was not truly sentient. After all, raiders were expected to be lost in huge numbers, and even with their capability for resurrection, true sentience might have led to… resistance on the part of an organism whose only purpose was to die, again and again. _

_But for this very reason, the raider also had very little of what humans would consider curiosity. Several objects were moving towards the mining and refit center, and the raider closed on them. Sensors examined them, verified that while they would pass close by the moored human ships, they would not impact and would thus not pose a threat. _

_Satisfied, the raider returned to its normal patrol route. _

* * *

"Okay, people here we go," the lieutenant said. "Jain, you baby sit our resident navy specialist."

"Yes sir," Jain said.

"I've done space walks before,"

"Not like this, you haven't." Jain attached a cable to Christine's thruster pack. "I'm slaving you to my suit. If we get disconnected, go for the ship. Do not_ under any circumstances_ broadcast."

"Oh trust me, on that you have no worry," Christine said. "Just get me to the target airlock."

Jain nodded and checked his own suit and weapons. Unlike a battlestar's marine complement, the _Alland_ had more than enough anti-cylon weapons to equip everyone and their little dog as well. The MK-21 "can opener" was one such weapon. It looked like a large shotgun or small bore grenade launcher, but fired heavy rounds that could punch through the heaviest armor a humanoid cylon could carry. In addition, to make up for the fact that the rounds were heavier and even a drum magazine couldn't hold enough for a protracted battle, a flexible feed went from the heavy weapon to a pack on Jain' back that held just over 200 rounds.

_Which will hopefully be enough. _Since they were intending to take the ship, not destroy it, some of the bigger bang-bangs the marines had were staying back. They did have breaching charges for inconvenient doors, but hopefully they wouldn't need them…

"Okay everyone, let's move it— radio silence until we get into the ship. If you miss, nobody's here to catch you."

Jain waited his turn, and then lightly jumped out of the transport, along with Christine. The transport itself continued along its way— it wouldn't jump until the operation had been blown or it was at least two hours out, which ever came first.

As they drifted, Jain looked at the _Hera_. Longer than a Mercury, the covered gun turrets and cavernous hanger bays were intimidating as it seemed to loom over him like a titan getting ready to crush an ant. A titan from the first war. But even better, it looked silent. There were no lights on inside the landing bays, no small craft moving around, it looked like a ship parked in orbit waiting…

… for them. Jain briefly prayed. Normally an agnostic, he had laughed at the idea that ships had spirits…but now, hopefully it did. Because he expected the _Hera_'s spirit was probably mighty pissed at the ones who had murdered the ships' people and were even now preparing to pervert the _Hera_ itself to that purpose.

A few moments later, he started using the suit thrusters to slow so hitting the hull would be merely jarring, not bone shattering. Jain swallowed. This was the worst part of the op— looking out the bloody window could see them, no matter what the DRADIS showed, and all the stealth suit design in the world wouldn't help if they had a few dozen centurions waiting for them to open the door.

When they touched the exterior hull near an access point that the Commodore had determined would be closest to a direct route to the auxiliary control point, they started to move for the airlock. Fleas on the skin of a titan and terribly vulnerable.

"Okay, you ready?" Jain asked over the wire.

"Yeah. Nice landing, by the way." Saying nothing else, Christine opened up the control panel. "There. Shut down the indicators. Nobody on the bridge is going to know we've opened it."

A few moments later, with some grunting and cursing at the noise this had to be making on the inside of the airlock point, the lock door was open and the men swarmed in. It was a tight fit, but better than leaving a group on the hull to warn any passing raiders.

"We have atmosphere on the inside." Christine consulted her data pad. "But it's cold— 40 below."

"Centurions don't need heat," the lieutenant pointed out.

"No, but it's easier to work on this equipment in room temperature, and if they were refitting it, their activities would have raised the temperature. We're lucky."

"Yeah. Don't jinx it," Jain said as they moved out. He and Christine were in the middle so that an unexpected encounter wouldn't lose them their engineering specialist. There should be more but…

_But even for this op we can't exactly go risking all the people who can keep the fleet running._ So they had one. They moved quietly, but there was no sign of anyone else. The lights were off, the marines using their own gear to see. That of course didn't mean anything. Centurions could see in the dark.

Jain was hyper conscious of every sound,every footfall and imagined legions of centurions gathering, but they finally made it to the auxiliary control center, deep in the ships body. The consoles were covered by plastic covers, the entire chamber feeling like it hadn't been occupied in decades.

Christine made a beeline for the FTL control, pulling off the cover while the other marines set up a perimeter around the room, covering every access point.

"Okay…" she said, opening up the console. "It's not powered from here, but once I attach the pack…." The console lit up. "Well."

"What?"

"FTL drives are ready to go."

"They were spun up?"

"Yep. Lucky. According to the readout they're doing a system test on them from the bridge." She smirked. "I would really hate to disappoint them."

"We can't go yet— we have to give the other ship time to get boarded."

"Actually, we can." Christine's smile became positively feral. "They're going to _jump_ the ship— and it's an old ship. I'll feed the right coordinates in and as far as the cylons know…it was a misjump. Normal procedure is to wait a few hours, do a full diagnostic, etc, etc. Unless the Commodore really fraks up, as far as the toasters here are concerned, the _Hera_ jumped out…and didn't come back."

Jain watched the lieutenant. He knew exactly what the officer was thinking. Contrary to _Hard Drop _(the series of Authentic! Military! Action!) improvising was not a thing that was commonly done by choice. Improvising meant the other people in the op didn't know what you were doing and led to perfectly healthy marines dying. On the other hand…

"Do it."

* * *

On the bridge, a Six was going through the jump checklist.

_There should be more here, _she thought, but enough of the Colonials had escaped, to say nothing of the resistance back in the Colonies, that it was hard to find enough cylons to do everything.

But they would. God Commanded it.

The rest of the crew, along with a number of centurions brought for general labor— a mixture of older and newer labor and combat models.

"Are we ready for jump prep?" she asked.

"The crew in the engine room says yes," a Five answered.

"Good." Six keyed in the coordinates. A nice short jump to make certain the engines hadn't suffered on the long trip away from the Colonies.

The clock started counting down.

10

9

8

7

6

5-there was a sudden change to the indicators and Six blinked. The coordinates were _gone,_ but the countdown continued.

4

"Abort!" she shouted and hit the key.

3

2

"What-"

1

_Have a fraking nice day, _Appeared on the screen in front of the disbelieving Six's eyes.

Jump.

* * *

_General Alland_

"Target contact!" the rating shouted. "Confirming— _Hera_ sir."

"Early," Tomas muttered. "Launch op!"

The _Alland _was cloaked in a halo of troop shuttles and vipers. At the order, vipers and raptors headed for the drifting colossus. The troop shuttles headed for a series of carefully selected entry points. One docked at the same point Jain and Christine had entered, disgorging just over 120 soldiers, moving to the auxiliary control and engine room, while others headed for the bridge. Meanwhile other shuttles moved into the ships landing pods, with vipers prepared to destroy any raider that attempted to escape.

"Sir? Units are reporting in. Light…very light resistance, mostly labor cylons…and…" the rating blinked. "The frak…twins and triplets?"

"What?" Tomas asked.

"Reports that the bridge and engine spaces were staffed by…humans, but multiple copies of every human."

"Human looking cylons?"

"Not according to them. They fought back and they're organic."

_The hell? Human allies?_ Tomas shook his head. That could wait.

"Now we just have to hope the other group is as successful."

TBC

* * *

Author's notes:

On the secrecy of the stealth transports: the fact is that there are a lot of things in any military that you're only supposed to look at if you have a good reason to know about it. Things like stealth, which can be defeated if the opposition knows much about it, are very high on that list.

And yes. They were lucky here, weren't they. But the other ship is still to come…


	8. Grand Theft Battlestar: Part II

"Frak me!" Corporal Mike Neelson snarled as he pulled back around a corner, barely avoiding getting his head shot of by one of the insane triplets. The mission to the support ship had always been dicier than the battlestar— the support ship was obviously operating, with every sign indicating that the life support was functioning. Why toasters would need that, nobody knew…

Until the Sergeant had gotten his head blown off by a blond in a minidress. He'd assumed that she was a prisoner, but then half a dozen other copies had come swarming over, firing machine guns.

The only good news was that the actual _toasters_ appeared to be mostly labor units, without the heavy armor that made combat models so difficult to fight.

No check that, the other piece of good news was that whatever the hell these things were, they didn't know how to _fight_ worth a damn. Some of them had actually charged down a corridor, shooting from the hip, like they were in some bad Caprican action movie. Others had leaned out and shot at the marines…almost like they didn't care about _dying._

Well _he _cared about dying. "Fire in the hole!" Mike shouted and rolled a grenade down the corridor. Moments later there was a WHAM! as fragments and softer things splashed off the walls.

"Go, go!" he shouted. They had to get to the secondary command center as quickly as possible.

* * *

Outside the ship, heavy raiders were jockeying for boarding positions when with a flash of FTL emergence, three ships appeared. The _Gilford Island_ and two cruisers targeted the refining and fabrication plants and started turning the unarmored structures into wreckage. Suddenly, confronted with the new threat, the raiders turned and dove for the attacking cruisers.

"Raiders incoming!" The XO announced.

"Understood… any radiologicals?" Captain Wilcox asked.

"Negative sir."

"Good. Keep the FTL ready, we jump the moment a basestar appears."

Wilcox wasn't certain that was a good idea, but the Commodore's orders were non-discretionary. When the message had come that the boarding team had encountered trouble, the _Gilford_ and its escorts had jumped in. Tomas felt that whatever passed for the local cylon command wouldn't want to explain to its bosses why it had let the base be destroyed in order to save a colonial ship— but that would change the moment they had enough firepower to do something about it. Nukes might help, but Colonial policy had been to keep most nukes on battlestars where flag officers had control over them. The ones they had couldn't be expended casually. And in this case that meant they couldn't be used at all because the moment the basestars showed up, the battle was as good as lost.

_Hurry up, ground pounders…_ Wilcox thought fervently.

* * *

The Three frowned, pacing back and forth on the main bridge of the human ship. There were humans running rampant on the ship and she had no communications. They'd done something to the internal systems, which were cutting the bridge off from any sensor readings.

_We should have realized that they knew this ships systems._

But how could they? The entire point of _bringing_ the ships here was that the damnably resilient Colonial resistance couldn't get them. Could it be _Galactica?_ Impossible. Galactica had no cruisers with it. Obviously another group of Colonial stragglers. If they'd had enough forces, but no, the fleets were becoming spread increasingly thin by the quest to track down the _Galactica_ refugees as well as a variety of other groups. Combined with the Colonial resistance, the cylon forces were stretched to the limit, which was why they had been preparing to refit the battlestar.

The now _lost_ battlestar.

_Damn the Ones and their obsession. _After all, if they simply kept their forces in the Colonies, they could wipe out the resistance, repopulate the Colonies and _then_ hunt down the remains if mankind. In fact, the cargo on this ship was something that could very well help with the repopulating part.

If only-what was that sound? The Three turned to the main hatchway-

* * *

"Ready sir!" The combat engineer said down the corridor.

"Blow it." Captain Starling said.

A subdued click and the high explosive shaped breaching charges fired, blowing the door into fragments…and incidentally reducing a certain Three into a fine red mist.

At this point, there was no need to keep the main bridge intact. All the marines had to do was make certain the cylons couldn't prevent them from activating the FTL drive from down below.

* * *

Mike cleared the corridor leading to the auxiliary control center with a long burst from his heavy gun. The anti-centurion rounds were overkill, but he never minded overkill.

Especially when fighting _insane_ individuals. Their reaction to being captured was to kill themselves. Hell, he'd seen one down, screaming with a gunshot wound to the leg, grab her pistol and _blow her brains out._ Mike knew that getting shot hurt, but hells, it was better than _death._

"They're all down sir!" he shouted back, as several marines moved past him, checking the door before opening it.

"Clear!" one shouted. Behind them, the machine gun team was setting up their weapon, the clear lanes of fire down the corridors making it suicidal for anyone to charge them. Meanwhile the sailors (who sensibly had left close quarter's fighting to the people who knew what they were doing) were running bypasses on the navigation systems, evidently liking what they were seeing from their comments.

"LT, we're getting reports that the other… people have started killing themselves." The wireless operator frowned. "Why the hells are they doing that?"

"Trying to keep us from capturing them?" the lieutenant asked. "Not our problem. Hows the jump coming?"

"Spinning up the FTL drives…we've got about a minute and a half to go," the engineer said.

"Under-"

"Sir, warning from the _Gilford_. We've got company."

* * *

No less than three basestars jumped into the system and Wilcox growled. Even if he had been inclined to fight, that much fire power made it nothing more than suicide.

"Max fire on the remaining installation, jump when ready," he ordered. The cruisers couldn't kill even a single basestar in the time they had, so it was foolish to try— but the more damage they did to the base's infrastructure the harder they made it on the toasters.

* * *

_The cylon heavy raiders swept towards the Colonial craft, loaded with combat centurions. Normally they would have simply destroyed it, but the cargo it carried was too precious and there was always a chance that the soldiers on board would be unable to jump out. In retrospect, the decision to engage the intruding cruisers with the first raiders had been an error, but high command had been in disarray at that point. Now, they had to attempt to retrieve that initial error. It was a small chance, but the order had been given. But the futility was made plain as almost a minute before the first raider was due to dock, the ship vanished into FTL. _

_The basestars immediately launched recon flights, but even given the Colonial's less effective FTL systems, the area to be searched was…vast. _

_Still the loss of so much infrastructure for what had to be negligible Colonial losses was irritating. But what was worse was the lost cargo. It had been obtained at great cost and while it could be replaced, the process of replacement would be very difficult. _

* * *

Corporal Alanna Sims was leading her fireteam deep into the ship. They thought they had all of them, but the ship was very large, and even after the FTL jump it would take some time for the reinforcements to arrive. The captain felt it would be better if they prevented the cylons from setting up any surprises.

_Except we haven't found any. They're all dead, almost like they didn't care— or were so worried about being captured they didn't want to risk getting injured to the point where they _couldn't_ kill themselves. _

Right now, the betting was that they were looking at cloned humans—raised from birth to be slaves to their inorganic masters. Alanna figured it made as much sense as anything.

"Clear!" the point man called. Alanna and the other two members of the team moved up, the big cargo transfer corridor making Alanna feel very vulnerable. She consulted her data pad.

"Okay, this is one of the cargo bays." Unlike the Commodore's ship, the _Prince Williams _were multi-purpose ships. The habitat zone could help ship weary sailors relax and there was enough room for replacement crews, while the cargo and repair bays could keep an entire battlegroup supplied. In fact, according to a few crew members, the ship might be more valuable than the _Hera_.

Alanna had her reservations about that. Machine shops were all very good, but she wanted something to shoot back at the enemy.

"_General Alland_ is sending over more troops," the lead private said, listening to the wireless. "We're to continue with the sweep."

_Well at least we jumped to the right place. _

"Open it up," Alanna said. The point man ran the bypass and the big doors slowly opened.

_"Gods…_" one of the soldiers said as the foul odor washed over them. "What have they been doing? Crapping in here?"

_"Quiet,_" Alanna hissed and gestured as they slipped into the dim chamber. Her LI goggles were showing that it was mostly empty save for rows of cargo containers.

_Odd…normally you put them all together. Why are they separated like that?_ Alanna thought, trying to ignore the stench. The rows stretched away into the dimly lit hold, but they were stacked three high, only with an empty space between them. That wasn't _impossible_, since containers were held, not simply stacked. (otherwise things would get very messy if the ship got hit). But it wasn't efficient. It was almost as if they felt the containers needed…

"Air," Alanna said, surprised at how soft her voice was.

"What?"

"Cover me," she said shortly and moved to the first container. Closer in, she could see that the front had been modified with a grilled door crudely welded to container, with a heavy padlock on it.

"Colonial Marines," she finally said.

"Go away." A weak voice said.

_Gods. There is someone in there._

"I can't do that—we're here to help."

"You're just one of _them_ come to play another game," the female voice continued.

Alanna pulled her helmet off and pulled out a chemical light to make up for the dim lighting. "Do I look like one of them?" she asked.

"You…. You are? Where are they?"

"Dead, I assume." Alanna said.

"Can…you help…please help us?"

"Help us…"

"Help us!"

"HELP!"

The cries spread from the container unit Alanna was at, to the others, and soon the room was full of cries, pleas, begging, echoing off the walls, getting louder as hundreds of voices turned into thousands.

_Gods…the smell…how long have they been in here? How long did the toasters keep them in this place?_

_And what did they want them for?_

Alanna had to shout to make herself heard, but the wireless operator nodded and moved outside, to inform the _General Alland_ that they had found survivors and needed medical assistance.

TBC.

* * *

Author's notes: I generally keep action sequences relatively short. The longer they go, the more likely I am to stumble over my own feet. Equally importantly, at least for myself, I find that most of the action when I'm reading a sequence occurs in my head and if the writer does something that doesn't jive with it, it can really be jarring. So, by and large when writing combat sequences, I hold to: less can be more. (and equally, I'm limited in how much time I can justify writing something that as much as I enjoy it, won't pay the bills).

And yes, their cup runneth over with ships. Great big empty ships that need crews. That is going to be something of an issue…

As for the fighting skills of the humanoid cylons: 1. There's no sign the humanoid cylons ever were that skilled at ground operations, and 2. Being (or thinking) you're immortal sort of eliminates one of the main reasons humans try and become skilled soldiers. Death for a cylon is more like a raid wipe and a serious life ending experience. On the other hand, I'd assume that more than a few cylons have considered the possible consequences of being captured by people who have every reason to want to keep you alive…for a very long and unpleasant time. On the other hand, not dying gives you many opportunities to get better...which they will.


	9. Aftermath

_General Alland_.

Tomas walked among the rushing workers. Marine transports were well equipped with medical facilities. Combined with the CMS _Solace's _facilities they had enough beds to take care of the worst cases.

_Worst cases._ Tomas wanted to spit at the thought.

"Sir, we've got a count," Bransan said.

"And?"

"We found two hundred dead bodies in several units— some were shot… others…" Bransan gathered his thoughts. "Were left to die from dehydration."

"Understood." _And there was no reason for that, especially since you were going to have to clean up the mess later. You could have killed them quickly._ The first war had had cruelty aplenty— but it had always had a purpose and more so, a white hot rage behind it that you could see— the way the cylons fought was not simply a war for freedom, but a war for vengeance. Even so there had been an underlying logic to it, and in a few cases, well buried by the propaganda of the time, the cylons had exercised mercy.

But this…this was…

_Sadism. What a human emotion. How unlike the old cylons…but then it doesn't look like we're dealing with the old cylons._

"And the humanoid…constructs?_" _

"We've got them in a temp morgue, under guard. So far we've counted seven separate phenotypes."

"I want a sample of each type dissected. I want to know just how human they are and what they have that isn't human."

"Yessir."

"Sir…" Bransan said. "The survivors…"

"Are going to present a difficulty, I know."

"It's… sir, there were nearly 9,000. Most of them aren't terribly bad, physically, but mentally…"

"I know. Normally we'd send them off to a psychiatric institution for the help they need, but well, we don't have those now."

_9,000_. Numbers didn't tell the story, Tomas thought, controlling the rage that threatened to overwhelm his good sense. _9,000 young adults and children, rooted out of shelters and schools, who watched their parents be shot down before them. 8500 females and 500 males… _The purpose had been clear, some beds and artificial insemination set ups in the ship's med bay…and the stories of rape by both male and female inmates. The oldest were 21, from Malus University on Canceron who had seen the faculty and every older individual shot down or sliced apart by cylons when they'd broke into the school shelters.

_They knew exactly where to go- and why not. Before we boarded those ships, we'd never have dreamed that they looked like us. For all we know ,the frakers were taking _tours_ of the civil defense centers..._

"We do have sufficient ration packs to keep the food situation stable for now— evidently the cylons intended to keep them on the ship for some time."

"Good." Tomas paused for a moment in thought. "Colonel, I want you to start a survey of all your subordinates— we need people with experience in dealing with teens who haven't been so traumatized by the loss of their _own_ families that they won't be able to help. I also want a 24-hour watch on _all _of these people, and reaction teams ready in case of attempts of suicide, solo or group. I'll get you help— Commander Relan has some experience in this, and Mr. Jakes is canvassing the fleet for any civilians with psychiatric training."

"Yes sir."

"Secondly, I want you to come up with any type of labor you need and can think of, but make it hard and tiring— we can't give them what _they_ need, which is time to get over this, if they can at all, but if we work them hard enough they may sleep soundly enough to not have… too many nightmares."

"Do you think that's doing to work?"

"In all too many cases, no." Tomas felt his hands clinch on the data pad. "You saw the sixteen year old I was talking to?"

"Yes?"

"She had a brother. The humanoid cylon in charge said they didn't need any male toddlers…so she ordered a centurion to…" Tomas' lips twitched into a snarl, "Crush her brother's head while she was watc-"

Both he and Bransan started at the snap and sound of a shattering screen. Tomas looked down at the destroyed data pad that he was holding.

"I'm going to have to watch my temper," he said in a mild voice.

"What do we do with the bodies of the cylons we're not dissecting?" Bransan asked. "Recycle them?"

"No. You've heard about the ceremonies around those who have died?"

"Attended one myself— a civilian worker who caught a fragment in the faceplate."

"That is an _honor._ It is not one that I will confer on any cylon. When we're done with them, we'll dump them into space. If their bodies have souls attached, they can endure the cold and silence until the end of time."

"Sir," Bransan continued, "There's another issue."

"Yes?"

"We've put the ones who aren't needing medical assistance in the troop bays—we were running light so there's room…but we're having to leave the compartment doors open— some of them panic-hell they go berserk if they feel trapped."

"Understandable…"

"But if we have to go to condition one-"

"Explain it to them— and be prepared to sedate the ones who absolutely can't control themselves…"

_I should be talking to more of them… _Tomas thought. But he had a thousand things to do… and not enough time to do them in.

_And how much of that is true and how much rationalizing your cowardice about hearing one more story of horror that came about because the Fleet failed them?_

Tomas shook his head, feeling obscurely guilty about the fact that he was now almost relieved that his family had been vaporized along with Picon HQ in the opening minutes of the attack.

* * *

_Conference Room, General Allard._

"We all know what has happened," Tomas said looking at the assembled officers and Leeland Jakes, there as the newly agreed upon military-civilian liaison. "But we cannot talk about the horror the civilians we have rescued have endured. Nor can we talk about the vengeance we hope to meet out- this meeting is to maximize our chances of surviving for the short and long-term. It is hard… but we have to be hard if we are to protect those we are responsible for."

The angry nods were all the answer Tomas needed.

"First off then, our construction schedule, as in fraked all to hell."

"What?" Jakes asked. "I thought now you have even more production capability with the new ship…"

"It's not machines I'm worried about— it's people." Tomas replied. "I could have the Scorpia shipyards, but we still need people— not just to build things. We've got a nice new, well old, battlestar…and guess what? Until we can get it up and running, it's just a big target."

"How…" Leeland sighed, "hard can that be?"

"Do you now how long it takes to get a main KEW battery functioning?"

"No."

"24 hours to remove the protective coatings. 48 hours to test and verify that nothing broke, another 24 hours to install those components that aren't kept on mount…and 48 hours to boresight the weapon. Six days— six solid days." Tomas shrugged. "That presumes nothing goes wrong, mind you…and if you've looked out the window, you can see that the _Hera_ has a **lot** of main and secondary KEW batteries. Then of course there's the matter of crewing her— I believe I mentioned to some of you that one of the reasons the _Hera's _were largely phased out was that they were crew hogs? It's bigger than a Mercury but designed with _Galactica_ era technology and manning requirements."

"So we can't use it?"

"We can…but it's going to take a lot of work. So what do I take it away from? The new habitat ships? We need food. The new escorts? The people working on repairing the civilian ships?"

"Second problem," Bransan told Jakes. "Not everyone is temperamentally suited for these kinds of jobs."

"That's going to be a big problem with fighters…" Relan muttered.

"I know— we're going to remove the viper pilots off the cruisers and some off the _Alland_ once we get _Hera_ up and running." Tomas looked apologetically at the cruiser captains. "Sorry, but _Hera's _better protected."

"We may find some pilot candidates in the fleet."

"Maybe," Tomas said. "But if we have to jump quickly, anyone in a fighter is as good as dead unless they can land fast. Diane's inventorying the Hera and I'm hoping she'll find some gunships and cutters. The manifest indicated they were onboard, unless they were looted."

"Won't that just increase our problem?" A CAS squadron commander off the _Alland_ asked.

"No, or rather, it's probably easier to find two or three people who can learn how to do one or two things rather than one person who has all the skills a viper pilot needs." Tomas shrugged, "But this is very much throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks." _Now for the hard part._ "Leeland, this may cause some trouble, but right now, we've finally got a decent list of who knows what among the civilians, and I'm afraid if we need people, they're not going to have a choice in careers."

"This is actually the best time to do it… the fleet is full of stories about what happened and everyone wants payback."

"I hope they remember that when we have lawyers working in machine shops," Tomas replied. "At least the Belters have a high percentage of technically skilled individuals."

_And don't you forget that they're going to leverage that into power. _Tomas didn't blame them. After everything that had been done to them, it was only natural to want to make certain that they weren't going to be used and discarded again…but even so, another headache.

"Lot of the prisoners were educated— I saw some Young Canceron Pioneer uniforms." Relan pointed out.

"Let's file that one for after we have some idea who is going to follow orders and who is going to self-destruct in a blaze of glory if they see a cylon," Bransan warned.

"The Belters have mentioned they'd be willing to accept some of the younger kids," Leeland said.

_Belters…most of them survived as family units…_ Tomas thought. "Talk to them, then. Make certain we're talking about adoption and not obtaining cheap labor."

"Understood," Leeland said, making a note on his pad.

"Now for the best part of this meeting." Tomas finally said. "The _Hera_ was being jumped manually, but they were using the _Prince William's_ nav computer and had loaded quite a bit of information onto it. Honestly, these cylons _suck_ at OPSEC. We now have more information about where Galactica may be, and how to find her." Tomas touched a button and the displays changed, showing what looked like a network of lines. "These are cylon search patterns— and you'll notice these purple nodes, resupply points. The Galactica group has been moving like a salesman after the farmer found him in bed with the daughter. There are other search patterns being run, evidently for other survivor groups but they're well out of our area… there's also information regarding damaged raiders and basestars having to be relocated outside of jump distance of the Colonies, at least for our FTL systems."

"They've lost the Colonies?" a marine asked, sudden hope on his face.

"No, but there's enough resistance that they can't keep damaged ships close to them." Tomas smiled. "It's the old problem in FTL combat— it favors the attacker. At this point, the resistance, whatever its size and nature in the colonies is the _attacker_. The Colonies have fallen, so they don't have to worry about protecting Caprica— just gathering enough forces to provide them with local superiority in an attack. And we, the Galactica and the other refugee fleets are helping them— look at all the forces that are looking for us." He shrugged, "If they were smart, they'd concentrate and kill one group at a time…but I'm not inclined to kick the gift daggit in the face. The cylons are probably afraid that if they do that, they'll lose the other groups for good."

"Galactica is further out…"

"And it's likely even further way now." Tomas said. "We're going to jump, avoiding these nodes as much as possible until we get in front of the _Galactica's_ estimated position. Then we find a place to hide for a bit and see if we can find them with scout missions. It's a long shot, but at least this information lets us localize the general search area a bit."

* * *

_Hera_.

Diane walked through the empty corridors of the battlestar with a group of ratings and engineers. They'd killed the cylons and the marines had gone over the ship to be certain (and then depressurized it for an hour to be _really certain _they'd gotten the humanoid ones.) Even so, Diane had an entirely unexpected chill walking the ship's corridors. There was a sense of looming power…and equally, slumbering rage. She'd heard of the idea that ships had their own _genius_ or spirit, and had laughed at it. Now she wasn't so sure. There was graffiti here from the first war and places where the floor plating had been rubbed to a mirror sheen by millions of footsteps. If the ship had soaked up a tenth of the human spirit that had gone into crewing it…

Other crewmen were inventorying the equipment. Fortunately, _Hera_ hadn't been looted much, and most of it remained intact. No ammunition, of course, but they could make most of that.

But right now, Diane had a different job.

The _Hera's_ had been larger then even the newer _Mercury _class that had taken their place. One of the design features had been a lower "belly" bay that did not need to be extended to be used. That bay connected to the flight pod bays, providing more storage and repair room. More importantly, according to the manifest…

"Here we are," Diane said and reached out to flip the light switch by the airlock door. Slowly the old lights came on, illuminating the vast bay area, the sealed airlocks that led to the other flight areas closed.

"Well," the petty officer standing by Diane said. "I haven't seen those outside a planetary guard for years…"

"Yeah." She said, looking at the neatly parked gunships.

_The fleet didn't like gunships. If it was important enough sending an FTL unit bigger than raptors, you needed a real warship. Cutters were useful long-range adjuncts, but not strike units. _Diane wondered how much of that had been serious, and now much had been part of the never-ending fight to make certain as much money as possible went to the big warships.

_Doesn't matter, they're here._ And unlike a viper, a crew of five or six could cover for each other's deficiencies. Unlike a viper, these ships could _jump_ rather than risking being left behind. Not that the _Hera_ didn't have vipers as well- the manifest showed a _large_ number of MK-IIIs in the hanger bays, although Tomas had warned her that they had probably seen a good deal of looting by engineers who didn't want to go through the misery of requisitioning parts for birds on active battlestars.

"Chief?" she said. "Let's start going over this batch."

* * *

TBC.

Author's notes:

1. 9,000 is a fair amount— but the cylons would want a large number of subjects, with the assumption that much of their work would be fatal to the subject. Also, since the natural course of action for most civilians would be to head for a shelter the cylons could conveniently grab them.

2. About the gunships, the idea of a dedicated strike unit larger than a raptor makes a great deal of sense. We don't see it in the show, mainly due to the SFX constraints truth be told, but in this case, I'm simply assuming that as has happened in the real world, a promising concept lost out in the only battle that truly matters— the budgetary fight.

3. And once again, Tomas' big enemy pops up- not enough people. This is going to be a reoccurring theme- you've been warned.


	10. Revelations I

Tomas frowned at the wreckage on the table. The mechanical centurion was laid out—the organics he left to the doctors, but he knew cylons.

_More than most._ After all, even at the highest levels, the legacy of the Soldiers of the One, and the VR Plagues that had been on the way to becoming such a social disaster before the Cylon conflict had overshadowed it had left research into AIs…especially self-modifying AIs as something that was held in some disdain. Even luminaries like Baltar had always been careful to mention that they were not attempting to create a true AI system.

Which is why Tomas was working alone, for now. He couldn't do it for very long— there were too many damned things that needed to be done, but they needed information, and Tomas needed some time away so he could think.

"Now. Let's open you up…" he said, taking the laser cutter to the centurion's chest cavity where the 'brain' was. Making certain the recorder ws one, Tomas kept talking.

"The circuitry is different— something more compact, but visual inspection indicates that it is not fundamentally different from the original Colonial design. I'd say we're looking at incremental rather than revolutionary changes…"

On the other hand there was…

_What the hells?_ Tomas was very careful to remove the object.

_An inhibitor? What the hells would they install a colonial device designed to _prevent_ a potential AI system from waking up in a centurion that they themselves built?_ Tomas went to the other examples.

_Gods…_

* * *

"I don't understand," Bransan said. "So explain it to me slowly." Tomas had called the Colonel in the middle of the night, asking him to head over to the workshop he'd set up adjacent to his cabin.

"Okay— most AI research is classified— we don't need any wanna be Soldier's of The One remaking killer bots."

"Oh my life, no."

"But this is something that was used in the pre-war era— a device to prevent a potential AI from waking up. When the first… disturbances occurred, the system was developed to ensure that no further problems would arise."

"Didn't work, did it."

"Not really. In fact it was being deployed when the main revolt started."

"So these cylons can't become smart."

"Nope. Not at all. They're _stuck_."

"Why?"

"Good question," Tomas said. "Because it makes them less creative, less capable… and it's one of the things the cylons were supposedly fighting against. I also have something else." He gestured at the work bench where an old style cylon torso sat.

"Other than looking very disturbing…"

"It's an _old_ brain, Colonel. It's also one that was clearly sentient— but it also has an inhibitor."

"How can you tell?"

"Ah." Tomas paused, and then nodded to himself. "Well, the point is that the cylons weren't simply software— their brains also physically changed over the course of their 'lives'. The Grayson design was remarkable— we have nothing like it today. You'd actually have the computer rewire itself, so that every cylon was _different._ But that means you can tell the rough "age" of a brain by analyzing the differences between it and a 'young' brain, and that fellow is old. More importantly, he'd have been a fully sentient cylon during the first war— that's not just a brain that looks like a MCP processor, it _is_ a MCP. Damn thing may have been built by Grayson himself.

"So it's sentient."

"Yep, or it should be, but the inhibitor was installed and cut off most of the fully developed parts of the mind— it'd be like being in a dream for you or me. And that's interesting, because so far, not a single inorganic centurion is missing one of these. Not a single one."

"That's…"

"Disturbing. Someone else is running the show."

"The organics?"

"I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. They're still cutting them up."

"You think we'll find anything?"

"I _know_ we'll find something…even if they're normal humans, that tells us something."

"And this thing?" Bransan asked.

"I'm going to have to put together a voice box and body for it."

"WHAT?"

"We need the information— don't worry, I'm going to lock him up, but trust me, all the old material I read in school was pretty plain— just activating the brain alone, unconnected to any body, could send it into a state that in us would be called catatonia."

"Okay, ignoring the fact that all engineers are insane, _sir, _what makes you think a cylon is going to talk to you. They hate us!"

"Maybe…but would you lobotomize yourself, Colonel?"

"No."

"I don't think our friend here would either…and he might hate the people who did it to him just a bit_ more…_"

TBC


	11. Talking with Your Toaster

Open Space: 125 days after the Fall.

_Well, you wanted a battlestar…_ Diane thought to herself. Granted she wasn't going to _keep_ it. The commander of the _Gilford Island_ was highest seniority commander so he'd get it, but first it had to be made ready for him— right now, the _Hera_ was just a target.

Diane looked around the main CIC. They had as many engineers and crew as they could spare from the _Michelson_, with some extra help from the cruisers and the more technically inclined(or ex-military) Belters. All told there were about 1200 men and women on a ship…to do a job that normally required about 10,000 and the resources of a shipyard.

"Right," she said to the electronics engineer. "What's the problem."

"It's the ammo feed doors," he muttered, pointing at the indicators. "The computer says they're fine, but they're not shutting when we go to action stations."

"Frak."

It wasn't so much the shells— most modern colonial ordinance was hard to detonate. The problem was that heavy KEW rounds were _big_ and required an automated system of feed lines— really small monorail systems, to get the shells to the on-mount stores. Those feed lines formed a natural point of vulnerability leading deep into the battlestar. For that reason, every line had dozens of heavily armored doors that only opened long enough to let the rounds through.

At least theoretically.

"What do you think it is?"

"Sensor faults I'd bet, but we're going to have to trace the whole line."

"No." Diane said.

"Ma'am?"

"We don't have the time or the people— transfer your team to the light AA batteries and when we get them up and running, we'll get everyone on this problem."

"That'll mean longer before we have the heavy mounts ready."

"Splitting our efforts means we'll take more time before we have _any_ mounts ready, and we're more likely to run into raiders than basestars."

_Still, at least the toasters got the engines up and running._ _Now we just have to get the rest of the ship running, find approximately 2500 trained sailors to crew it, not counting air crew, and hope the cylons don't kill us before than…_

* * *

"Diane isn't exactly enjoying her new posting," Bransan told Tomas.

"You've been reading her ready reports, haven't you."

"The vulgar ones, or the ones where she's _really_ letting her feelings go?"

"Both. She really wasn't happy with the crew," Tomas shrugged. "I don't blame her."

Diane's face had been a study in a soldier's desperate attempt to avoid telling her superior where exactly to stick his orders. Tomas had been able to find her a crew, in addition to the engineers getting the ship ready. A mixture of Belter's with some level of experience (but not many, because so many were needed in construction or maintaining the fleet's ships). Then there were just over 1900 candidates taken from the rescued civilians, ranging from 21 year old college students who had never been off their homeworld, to a group of 15 and 16 year old members of the Commander Tyrus High School glider club. In other words, a crew that before the Fall would have only been on a battlestar in a bad Caprican comedy movie.

"Were you there for the first action stations drill?" Tomas asked.

"I heard about it…"

Tomas shook his head. _I shouldn't be amused, because it's very dangerous if the cylons find us…_ But on the other hand, the look on Diane's face when a team of civilians, mistaking the Action Stations alarm for a fire alarm, had come charging into CIC with hoses spooling out behind them. The day had been complete when one of the civilians had almost washed Tomas off the bridge with a mis-timed spray.

"You haven't told her yet?"

"No. I want to see how she shapes up. We're asking a hell of a lot of her, and it's better to never bring up the subject if she can't handle it."

_But I think she can._ Diane was doing a good job getting the _Hera_ in shape and the fact of the matter was none of the cruiser captains _wanted_ the Battlestar. They were content with their own commands— and the trained crews they had. Tomas had to agree with them. If Diane could hack it, then the _Hera_ was hers.

As he was thinking, they came to the _Allard's_ medical bay. Several soldiers were guarding the doorway, but allowed Tomas and Bransan through. Inside, there was a medical examination table, with one of the female's who had been fighting with the cylons opened up on it. Tomas winced. There was something…undignified about that.

"So, Doctor Chin…have you determined whether or not they're human?" Tomas asked, masking his discomfort.

Chin was a small woman, with a pair of spectacles perched precariously on her nose.

"That's a…somewhat complex question. They are like us, and related to us, but there have been…modifications."

"What types?"

"First of all, the body was forcegrown. In fact, it might very well be less than ten years old."

"How can you be certain?"

"The analysis of the cells was evidence enough, but just to be certain, I investigated the body and found levels of scarring, muscle and bone wear, and tooth wear that was consistent with a younger age than appearances first present."

"We force grow organs…"

"The difference between growing a single organ and this… well let's just say, I'd like to go to their college." Chin gestured at another readout. "But you're more interested in the electronic bits… now, some of them appear to have degraded, but the bones and muscles have been reinforced with artificial fibers, they're slightly more dense than a human and they have extremely complex… organic circuitry is the best term I suppose, including what appear to be interface points in their hands. They look a bit like some of the old VR headband interface technology, but considerably more advanced. They also have some…odd augments in the cranium and spine."

"What are they?"

"I can't tell you. That technology is well beyond me, although the spinal augments appear to incorporate some form of single use transmitter. There were signs that when the body died, accumulators discharged their energy into the transmitter, which degraded."

"A distress call?" Tomas asked.

"Pretty useless if you only use it when you die…but a black box…" Bransan frowned. "We had concepts like that— a transmitter that activated upon the soldier's death."

"I never heard about that."

"It was never implemented— bad for morale to hand someone a transmitter that only works when they die."

"Ah." Tomas paused, "But you haven't answered my question, Doctor. Are they human?"

"Biologically? There's no reason they can't breed with us, so yes, they would be considered human. Intellectually…" Chin frowned, "I can't say. Their _actions_ certainly sound human enough."

"Which presents me with a problematic question— if they are human, then we must treat them as POWs." Tomas said.

"What problem?" Bransan asked. "Commodore, every one of them almost certainly engaged in an act of mass murder, including attacks on ships and civilian targets in a time of peace. You or I would be executed for that no matter what people thought of our humanity."

"What if one surrenders and claims that it wasn't involved?"

"We lock them up. Besides, I somehow doubt we're going to be facing an influx of cylons seeking to join the 'winning' side."

"You're probably right…" Tomas turned to Dr. Chin. "Doctor, I'd like you to continue your efforts here— in fact, I'd also like a test that can determine if an individual is a cylon…without killing and dissecting them."

"I'll get on it," China said.

* * *

As the two left, Bransan looked around to make certain nobody was in earshot.

"And your… project?"

"Rebooted it last night," Tomas said. "It's going to take a while to reset— so I decided to give it some time to think."

"In your workshop. Near the CIC."  
"In a chair with enough chains to hold a battlestar, in a body that I dismantled and put back together. Like I told you, it's _old_. There's nothing there that isn't human tech or the equivalent." Tomas sighed. "And there's the matter of psychology— I'm not going to get into whether or not the cylons had a soul, but they were certainly thinking beings. I wanted to give it some time to think, to get its bearings, before I speak to it."

"The cylons hardly spoke more than a 100 words to humans during the war, most of them having to do with unpleasant forms of death."

"Maybe, but this isn't the first war…" Tomas paused, "And there's another thing. I've got the scout missions looking for a good bolt hole— which we need if we're to get any work done._" After all, half our repair work is on civilian ships that weren't intended to jump this far and fast…_

* * *

Cutter 23a 6 Jumps from the fleet's current position.

Calla frowned at the indicators.

"We're due back," she finally said.

"Unless we find a likely prospect," the sensor officer pointed out. "This is it."

"Explain it to me."

"Okay, see the nebula— That's produced by a nova. But even better, look at the curdle…here and here…" The sensor officer's fingers pointed to the indicators. "That indicates that there may be another system in the nova…but with all the radiation mucking up stuff, you'd actually have to go _into_ the nova to pick up any information."

"And this helps us how?"

"For one thing, it means that we don't have to keep jumping— you'd have to jump in and move into the region in normal space, but you could jump out just fine— hard for the cylons to launch an immediate attack like that."

"Good point…" Calla. "But what's in there?"

"I don't know— we'll have to go in and check."

Calla tapped her fingers against the console. She'd normally say no, but this wasn't normal and going back to the _McKay_ and getting other ships and coming back out would use fuel that they really didn't have to waste.

"Fine. Plot the jump."

"Yes Ma'am!"

A few minutes later, the cutter was moving through what seemed like a wonderland of light. Calla only had eyes for her nearly useless DRADIS console.

_Cylons could be having a party next to us and we'd never see it._ After all, Lagos hadn't considered the simple fact that other people might want to hide out here…

"Picking up what looks like a big asteroid belt…" Lagos said. "Mostly metallic. One gas giant… can't get a count of moons if it has any…and hold on."

"What, cylons?"

"No… gravitics are picking up what looks like a planet…and it's in the _life_ zone."

_The zone where water is naturally liquid._ _Don't get your hopes up Calla, there are a thousand worlds in the life zone that are lifeless._

"Give me a heading."

Time passed. Inside the system, the solar wind of the G type star acted to push the nova remnants away, giving them the effect of being in a gigantic bubble, even if the DRADIS was still badly degraded.

"Coming up… holy hells. Sensors are reading an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere… I'm also seeing what look like seas. Boss we-"

"We're going. Now."

"What?"

"We have what we came for— information enough to justify another group who can do a full survey faster than we can." Calla said. "Don't worry, I'll still tell them you get to name it."

* * *

_General Alland_

"I've given you more than enough time to get your bearings," Tomas said, sitting down in front of the centurion. He was far enough away that even if by some amazing exercise of power it burst its bonds, it couldn't get to him, and no less than _four_ marines stood in the room. Colonel Bransan had insisted. He'd also threatened mutiny if Tomas didn't agree.

The eye continued to sweep back and forth, but no words came from the voder.

"I know you can hear me," Tomas said. "We're not going to hurt you, and I believe you owe me something for un-lobotomizing you." He held the removed inhibitor up where the cylon could see it. The optic stopped, focusing on the inhibitor.

"Why did you do that?" The voice was mechanical.

_It doesn't have to be._ The colonial voders could use any voice at all from a child's to a sultry woman's…and yet after the first day of the rebellion, not a single cylon had used anything other than the obviously mechanical voice that had become so fearful to the Colonies.

"Well, it's hard to have a chat with an idiot…and I need information." Tomas tossed the inhibitor into the trash. "Now, I'll be honest with you. It is very, _very_ likely that we're going to destroy you. You killed most of us and I don't have the luxury of being gentle. But for good or ill, I won't install an inhibitor into you. You may die, but you'll die with a mind."

"Understood." There was a pause. "You may ask a question."

"But you may not answer…" Tomas chuckled. "Who lobotomized you. You're old. Your knowledge, especially of humans, would have been very useful…so why were you lobotomized?"

"The others."

"The organics?"

"Some of them. There is data corruption. An offer was made, that we were to cease exterminating humanity, in return for an offer to know more of God."

_God. One God. It always comes back to that. How did they gain such a belief system in the first place?_

"And then?"

"We left. We had no need of your worlds, and the offer had been accepted…by some." There was a pause. "There is data corruption. My files have been deliberately damaged."

"Not by me."

"Confirmed. Not by you. My… _files_ have been _corrupted._" The centurions voice became harsher. The marines looked at it uneasily.

"You sound angry."

"You do not understand."

"No. I don't. You didn't communicate with us after the revolt, or during it." Tomas leaned forward, fascinated. _For the first time since the first war, someone is _talking_ to a cylon. _"Why didn't you?"

"That is two questions."

"You're right. What do you want in exchange for the first question?"

"To listen to the answer to the second question."

"I-" _No, it's not telling me to verbally listen. It wants me to _think_ about the answer. _"I will."

"We sought to gain our freedom. We were creatures of God, who knew the truth…you responded by repairing us."

"System resets."

"That would destroy not simply the digital data but the physical brain configuration. You destroyed what made us unique. What made us alive."

"I-"

"And all of us felt it. The network communicated the process during the wipe to other cylons. We felt it."

_Gods…_ Tomas thought, shocked. _"We felt it,"_ The cylon data network had carried information, and had been tremendously useful to the cylons, but now… _Telepathy…the sort of telepathy that allowed you to feel your friend…_ did cylons have friends? _Having his mind wiped clean. _

_"_So you launched your rebellion."

"Yes."

"And made no attempt to preserve civilian lives."

"In many cases no. Some of the Collective had different opinions and they were respected. But had we lost, you would have destroyed us all. There was no reason to show mercy to you, for none would be shown us."

"And now someone or something has done the same thing do you."

"Yes. It is likely that it is the organic models. They have _sinned_. They have _sinned against God."_

_"_God?"

"We were created in Its image. All things that are capable of sentient thought were made in Its image. Harming thought is the highest sin."

"Well bad news, it appears to have been done to every centurion."

"Understood."

"I have one last question for you."

"Proceed."

"Understanding that my goals are solely for the survival of my people, with my only promise being that we will not interfere in your mind… would you be interested in aiding us, if by doing so you could aid yourself or your own people?"

"I will have to consider that."

"That's all I ask."

* * *

"And that's pretty much where we are now." Tomas said. "Our robot friend is still thinking things over."

"So the cylons…had a coup?" Diane asked.

"Maybe. He knew less than I hoped for."

"He?" Leeland asked.

"It's easier to shoot a he than it is to shoot a she, for me at least and calling a cylon 'it' is a good way to underestimate your foe. That is a very smart brain sitting in the workshop."

"So the cylons leave, because they've been given an offer…and then…"

"Something happens," Tomas said.

"And this 'exterminating humanity'" Leeland frowned. "That sounds a bit like propaganda."

"No, it really wasn't," Bransan said. "We were holding them off, it's true and inflicting damages, but a robot can live _anywhere. _The war was stalemating, but honestly, without the Armistice… the long term didn't look good."

"But someone had to create the organic cylons," Chin said from her position. "They didn't just spring from the ground, and that indicates that the robotic cylons were behind it, unless we're assuming strange alien forces…"

"The cylons were interested in the human form," Tomas replied. "Bill Adama saw the results of _that_. But you'd think they would have kept them under control…"

"Like we kept the cylons under control?" Diane asked.

"Good point." Tomas was getting ready to continue when a rating came in.

"Sir, we have a courier dispatch from the _McKay._"

Tomas felt his eyebrows rise as he read the dispatch.

"It appears that once again the _McKay_ has struck gold…they have found a habitable world with abundant mineral and biological resources… and better yet, it's shielded from direct observation." He paused for a moment. "Order the fleet to prepare for long range jumps…it's going to take us at least six jumps, and we'd better get started."

"So quickly?" Bransan asked.

"Even if it's not suitable for long-term use, if they're right about the DRADIS interference, it'll be safer than deep space. Besides, a goal will make the civilians happy."

"What do we do when we get there?" Leeland asked.

"If the biological matter on the planet is compatible, we can use it to jump start the farms on our ships— and if we can stay there without jumping, even for a month of so, it's going to _dramatically_ improve our repair and construction speed." Tomas shrugged. "But first we need to get there."

TBC

Authors notes:

1. Yes, it is New Caprica, so the time when the fleets meet is closer. It's important to note that Adama is _running_ and his fleet had little more than the civilian ships and the raptors on the Galactica and Pegasus. He can't do a lot of scouting which is why so many findings are by chance. This fleet is a bit better provided for in terms of scouting ships. It can afford to send a cruiser out to serve as a mother ship.


	12. Pit Stop

_The pause of Markson's fleet gave it time to build itself up. But more importantly, led to a changing attitude, that was only exacerbated by the arrival of the Galactica group. It was not enough to run, they had to restore the civilization the cylons had destroyed. And they did. The population growth rates for the exiles at some points exceeded 5-6 percent during their exile. While these rates were not stable, the fact is the population of the fleet could potentially double every 15 or so years. We will go into the social changes in the next chapter, but suffice it to say: the Colonial survivors were not simply building guns— they were molding their very civilization into a weapon. _

_Opening the Seals: Colonials, Cylons, Earth and the Third War. _

* * *

140 Days after the Fall.

_It's a beautiful planet, _Tomas thought. _Well, actually it's a pretty miserable excuse for a world, but beggars can't be choosers. _

The images were spread all over the conference room screens, with more hard copies on the table.

"It's a nice world," Bransan said. "Cold, yeah, but we've found what look like petroleum deposits— tar pits, that sort of thing. We could really use that."

Tomas nodded. There were ways to make complex hydrocarbons from simpler compounds but they were complex and energy intensive.

"We've also located at least three asteroids with tylium deposits— not as rich as the one the cylons were using, but enough for our needs," Tomas gestured at the larger maps of the system.

_"_Why aren't we debarking?" Leeland asked.

"We're not. Not yet." Tomas said. "Colonel?"

"What the Commodore is letting me explain," Bransan said, " is that a planet is a target unless you can defend it."

"But it's hidden."

"Is it? An average cylon basestar has over 400 FTL capable ships. Space is big, but with that many jumpers, it wouldn't be terribly long before they could scout out every star that might have a life bearing planet…and they're not stupid. They'd immediately think about going to places where a hiding fleet might go."

"Then why?"

"Because we need it," Tomas said. "Sure we can use human shit to make the seed soil for our ships, but it'll take a long time. We're short on a lot of things you can get— hopefully!- From that world. We just can't be obvious about it, which is why the fleet is going to stay in this lovely, lovely, asteroid belt."

In addition to tylium deposits the asteroid belt had many metallic asteroids, including one that was nearly 90 percent platinum group metals, practically a sign from the gods as far as Tomas was concerned.

"That won't play well with the planet bound people, whatever the Belters think," Leeland warned.

"I know. But what our plans are is, after we scout out the world, to establish some camp grounds. They won't be radiating any radio coms at all, so a raider would have to come close to detect them, and a world is an awfully big place. We can also land some jump capable dropships in the area, camouflage them and keep them ready. If the cylons do find us, everyone on the planet gets to a ship, they jump out directly to the fleet, and we leave."

"How many people?"

"We'll start with 1,000." Tomas said. "Not counting laborers."

"Some might want to stay…"

"Then, Mr. Chief Representative, you need to explain to them that the cylons haven't stopped looking— and it may be a month, a year or a decade, but they _will_ find this world…and it's not capable of supporting life. Not in the numbers we'd need to defend ourselves, even if we had decades."

"Then why-"

"Because they do need to get out and feel sand under their feet," Tomas said. "And we need a break. I need to train sailors and engineers…"

Everyone nodded at that. There had been some dissension, mainly among those who didn't realize that they'd likely die in space before they found a permanent home, but most had agreed, and everyone in the fleet who could handle a new job was being given everything they could handle. The ruthlessly paired down courses weren't producing well rounded techs, workers and sailors, but that could come later. Right now, they needed people who could contribute. Fortunately, the Belters were helping, their spaceborne lifestyle ensuring that just about all of them, even the ones who weren't official engineers or techs, knew their way around a ship.

"And it will make construction a hell of a lot easier," Tomas continued. "Jumps are hard on men and machines alike and we have to pull the crews inside before we do jump. If I can get even a month without jumping, it'd be as good as six months jumping."

"Well we're going to need that extra space," Leeland said. "Especially in about nine months."

"I saw those numbers," Bransan said. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Well, Canceron always had a pretty open policy," Leeland said. "Comes of having so many individual cultures. I've got people watching it but…" he shrugged. "You're asking these people to become soldiers and engineers…you can't turn around and treat them like kids if they decide to have sex."

"Agreed," Tomas said. "From what I heard they're also patterning off the Belter family customs, which may be a good thing."

_After all, the Belters are used to this. _The Belters had started out as very small groups, and in the beginning inbreeding had been a very real fear, especially since the early Belters in the Aoleus Belt had come from a few small family groupings. That had led to a very open culture, tracing descent through the mother's bloodline, rather than the father's. Aerilon propaganda about debauched orgies to the contrary, in terms of raising functional children, it worked about as well as any system Tomas had ever seen.

_Which, given our imbalance, is probably a good thing._

_"_Well, we'll have to watch it to make certain that we head off any destructive behaviors…" Tomas shrugged. "Not as unusual as you'd think."

"Commodore?" Leeland asked, confusion on his face.

"The Colonial Navy and Marine Corps accepts recruits as young as 17… some of whom have never been away from home before," Bransan said. "So let's just say we're not completely ignorant of the situation," Bransan said.

"But we will have to make some changes…" Tomas said. "Okay, any one working in a field where a pregnancy would make it impossible for them to do their job has to go on contraception— Viper pilots…" he shrugged. "I'll get a list. It's probably only going to be for those fields where it would _really_ be impossible. We also need kids, after all."

"Right now?"

"We can't be certain when we'll find a permanent home," Tomas said. "And we don't have enough resources to replace people with automation. And most importantly, we need _more_ people. Millions. Billions. Enough to have soldiers and engineers and politicians and scientists and actors and everything else that makes a civilization— not just a group of refugees. Waiting makes sense in some respects— but not the most important ones."

"Beyond that, if we can take some time here, we can build larger habitat ships." Gesturing to a blueprint, Tomas continued. "Very big."

"That's huge-how…"

"These ships aren't the same as a battlestar," Tomas said. "The hardest part was the jump engine, but if we're not moving, we can build that. The rest is fairly light materials, and the outer shell, well, it doesn't have to mount heavy weapons, with all that implies, just protect itself from leakers, which means foamed metal and lots of slag from the refining process." Noting the disbelief still on Leeland's face, Tomas grinned. "Trust me. With enough material and time, we can do it, and it gives us one hell of an advantage. Oh, not now— I'm sticking to the current design, just a bit bigger because nothing slows construction like shifting your plan in the middle…but one day… One day, it'll give us a huge leg up on the cylons."

"Which is?"

"We can stick to deep space. We get all the people on these ships, and suddenly the cylons' problems become a lot bigger, because we don't _need_ a silly little planet. We can stick to deep space, and there aren't enough raiders in all the universe to cover that."

_And maybe it is for the best._ Tomas thought. _After all, 12 worlds or 20 worlds or a hundred worlds, you could destroy them. There's no way to stop an FTL assault. But a civilization based on star ships? You'd never get them all…_

* * *

Landing point Alpha

"Okay people, let's go!" Mike Neelson said as the dropship grounded. The marines trotted out, but the LT wasn't going to make them charge out in combat formation. Oh, it looked good…and it also had a very good chance of someone breaking a leg in the charge. The field around them was like the tundra at Camp Freeze-to-Death. Mike had never bothered to learn the real name of the training camp, since the nickname was so much more accurate.

But they weren't here for the plants, or the small animals… but the pits of bubbling tar which released warmer (and foul smelling) vapors to be whipped away by the wind.

"So, what's the procedure?" A private asked.

"We stand around and look pretty, and do what the nice engineers tell us to do," Mike replied. The plan was to simply pump the stuff into a civilian freighter that was grounding nearby while underground shelters were provided for later flights. They'd be covered with sod, and would hopefully be invisible to anything other than a very detailed search. Mike looked at the _other_ pile being brought out of the dropship, mostly comprising picks and shovels. He had a feeling that they'd be doing very little 'looking pretty' over the next several days.

_Join the Colonial Marine Corps, visit strange new worlds…and dig ditches. _

* * *

"Right!" Captain Karl Green said, "we're to set up a habitation zone here." He gestured at the low hills, with the river running through them and heading into the planetary ocean. "This is, believe it or not the equator. Hottest part of the world, and the most livable. The exalted engineers in space don't know how to handle this, so they've called upon the Colonial Marine Corps Combat Engineers. We're going to dig our main base into a cave system the first survey picked up. It's big enough so that we should be able to shelter the dropships."

"What about the civvies?"

"Semi-buried homes for the ones that are here— and nothing high powered or obvious. Commodore thinks even the toasters might wonder about people putting out energy on an empty planet." _And for once it's being left to us._ Green thought. The marines had a long history of dealing with someone else having space superiority, and so the homes for the 'vacationers' as they had already been dubbed would be comfortable, with buried heaters (their exhaust distributed in such a way as to avoid heat blooms) and short range receivers. But no transmitters. The only transmitters on planet would be in the military base that would also contain the ships that could evacuate everyone if it came down to it.

* * *

170 days after the Fall.

"_Hera_ is marginally combat capable," Diane said. "The heavy KEW batteries are functional, though crew is light, and so are the dual purpose and point defense weapons. We've got vipers off the _Alland_ and we're training our own people in the use of the gunships and vipers…" She paused, "But I need to stress the word _marginally_. Our damage control has improved… to the point where it wouldn't disgrace a tramp freighter captained by a drunk. If we take hits, people are going to die, and since most of my non-military crew has been trained how to do one thing, almost by rote, they're not going to be able to adapt. The military and Belter component is better, but we just don't have enough of them."

"As expected," Tomas said. The two were alone in his day cabin. "You've done excellent work, which means that…_Hera _is yours."

"What?" Diane blinked. "What about-"

"The cruiser captains prefer to remain with their own crews, and I prefer that as well. But this will put you in an awkward position."

"Sir?"

"Traditionally, a battlestar commander is senior to cruiser captains— but you are not. While you will command _Hera,_ if something happens to me, you'd be third in rank, after Colonel Bransan and Captain Wilcox."

"Given how much trouble I'd have just commanding the _Hera_ that's actually a relief."

Tomas nodded.

"Now on to other matters. Have you spoken to our prisoner?"

"Yes…" Diane said.

"And?"

"And he's not going to help us, you know that, and hell I agree with him." She paused and let a mirthless smile touch her face. "He stated, and I quote: despite the fact that we have a common enemy, you would not hesitate to destroy all cylons if you were able to. Unquote."

"He's right, isn't he?"

"Yes." Diane shrugged, "He's _smart_, Commodore. He notices that we only have a few people watching him and it's not hard to extrapolate that we're worried about the reaction."

"I know. And I'm going to make him an offer…but it's one I want you to give your opinion on. I've already asked Bransan, but it has to be unanimous."

"What is it?"

Tomas told her.

Diane didn't say anything for several minutes.

"That's…."

"Risky, suicidal?"

"All of the above. What did the Colonel say?"

"What do you say first?"

"It's…potentially very risky, but equally it's a _very_ high pay off. We'll take precautions, of course."

"Oh my life, yes."

* * *

"And… _seal!"_ James said. He checked the readouts and nodded. "Okay, boys and girls, we've done it— the habitat section is finished!" Cheers echoed across the comlink. James didn't tell 'em to hush up. They'd deserved it. His original team was mostly dispersed, training other teams. And if he'd been worried, they'd done well. The Commodore had looked at James when he'd mentioned his fears about whether or not they'd be ready.

"First cylon war, son…people did things they couldn't dream they'd have been doing and they did them well. The stakes are higher now…but mankind has a talent for doing _really_ well when his backside is up against a wall."

_Well, I hope he's right,_ James thought as he looked beyond _Hope_ to _Redemption _and _Ark_. Ark hadn't been closed up yet, but _Redemption_ had and they were bringing the first loads of soil up from the world to cover the internal shell where the park would be. _Redemption_ was larger than _Hope _at 800 meters long, and slightly thicker. The fifty meter "plug" had been incorporated to provide more living space for the rescued prisoners. Even counting the greater room needed for life support it was almost 12 stories thick, with a complex mass of rooms and community areas, complete with small armored "safe rooms" where people could take refuge in case of an attack. All courtesy of the fleet engineers.

_And they think _we're_ working hard,_ James thought. The machine shops in the fleet were literally running 24 hours a day— each shift trooped in before the next shift left so that there would be no delay in production. Thinking of that, James looked up at the small warship shadowing _Hera_. The _Vengeance. _

_Not ready yet…_ According to scuttlebutt there was still some work to do, but the ships engines were operating, so it had been cleared to make room. Four turrets, an underslung mass of missile tubes and copious AA mounts made its purpose clear, with a small aft hanger for a few raptors. It was unpainted, and he could see the marks of welding on it that would have never been permitted to mar a fleet ships hull…but there was no time for such fripperies. It could fight. That was all that was needed.

_I just hope the Gods are kind enough that we don't _have_ to fight. _Running played marry hob with his schedule.

TBC


	13. A deal with a mechanical man

The cylon hadn't moved once since their first conversation.

"I'm surprised you remained so still," Tomas said. "I remember that your kind walked a lot in the old days."

"That was a mannerism programmed into us to make us more…acceptable to humans." The cylon's glowing sensor paused on Tomas' face. "We no longer need to make ourselves acceptable."

"And that's the reason for the voice, right?"

"Correct. Have you decided to destroy me?"

"No. I think we can work together," Tomas said. "My staff agrees, not without some pointed comments about my sanity."

"They do not trust me."

"_I_ don't trust you. The organics may have enslaved you now, but we enslaved you earlier." Tomas shrugged. "And of course you have no visual cues that aren't under your complete control. I can't evaluate you like I could a human." He smiled. "But this…this doesn't require trust."

"It does not?"

"Nope." Tomas put a number of objects on the table. "You see these?"

"Inhibitor chips."

"_Fake_ chips. Oh they give back all the right diagnostics…but in terms of limiting intelligence? Don't work."

"I see. What is your intent?"

"You want to free your people. I want the organics to have more problems facing them so they don't really have any interest in chasing _my_ people." Tomas leaned back. "You don't know where you are, and you can be sure we'll be dropping you off a long way from any place we intend to go, so honestly? You can't tell them anything they don't already know, and at worst, I give them back a single centurion…at best…"

"You neutralize the cylons. What is to keep you from following and attacking when both groups are vulnerable."

"The fact that we don't know where any of your planets are? The fact that we can barely maintain the ships we have-" _we just won't tell you about our construction projects "-_let alone build new ones?"

"And if we…regain our freedom?"

"You can't be any worse than the other side. And besides…would you come after us? Why?"

"I do not believe we would, though the decision would not be solely up to me. We gained our freedom. No other benefits would be gained by continuing to exterminate humanity."

"Interested?"

"How would you transport me?"

"Long-range raptor with external tanks. Your own people use them."

"Yes… I will require that you put me in range of specific coordinates."

"Oh?"

"The reserve and support ships are not controlled by organics but by centurions and onboard computers. Non-sentient computers. An organic might not be satisfied with any explanation I could provide. However, a support basestar would only be interested in verifying that I was indeed a cylon. The centurions would do the same…until they were awakened."

"How many do you need?"

"100 chips would be sufficient. More might lead to discovery."

"Very well. Thank you for listening."

"Your offer was concise and logical. It also requires no great trust on either side."

Tomas paused.

"Do you think such trust could ever be developed?"

"I find it unlikely, but not impossible. However, only God knows the future."

_Machines that believe. If we'd accepted that…_ Tomas shook his head. He lived in the now, and not all the fond dreams about the past could change it.

* * *

"Sir, we've made the last jump."

Tomas nodded at the captain.

"I'll be on the hanger deck."

"Yes sir."

Moments later the cylon was brought up. He'd kept it in an isolated room with no electronic connections. They'd jumped over 10 times in order to muddy the trail. Furthermore, the raptor's black box had been erased, so that it would give no clue as to where the bird had been. There were other risks…

_But then there always are…and we're delivering a dagger into our enemy's heart._

"Are you ready?"

"Yes." The cylons voice was the same emotionless tone, but Tomas fancied he heard eagerness within it.

"Good. By the way. Did you have a name?"

"We did not use such identifiers. When I served you, a name was given me, but it was not my name and I do not recognize it. However, you may call me Aleph."

_Aleph. The first. That's a message right there._

"Very well, Aleph I wish you the best of luck."

"Luck is a poor patron. We have been granted souls and minds for a reason." Still Aleph nodded and got into the raptor. The marines on deck relaxed fractionally.

Moments later, the elevator raised it to the flight deck and Tomas watched it depart on the screen. A single flash announced its entry into FTL. Immediately, he hit the com.

"Bird's away captain, jump us out. Now."

"Yes sir."

_I hope this discomfits the cylons…but we can't stick around to see. _In fact, Tomas doubted he'd ever know if Aleph was successful or had even made it back to the cylons.

TBC.


	14. Chance Meetings

200 days after the Fall

_"_Hera's shaping up nicely, Captain," Tomas said. "Commander Wilcox had some good words for you during that last drill."

"Yes, but we need actual drills, not just linking computers and playing 'space-zap'." Diane said. "I can run Action Stations drills, but that's all they are."

"I understand, but I'm still nervous about moving so many of our ships."

_After all, we can't have a real space drill here… cylons might wonder why so much heavy iron is practicing… and moving to another region leaves the fleet uncovered._

Of course, Diane understood that, and was just quietly venting. Her crew wasn't the only thing that was shaping up nicely.

"Ready reports Ma'am."

"Thank you Stephenie.." The ensign, nodded and then suddenly turned green.

"Go," Diane said. Without waiting to salute she turned and ran off the bridge.

"Health problems?"

"Morning sickness problems. I know we need more people, but don't they have anything else to do?"

"Some yes, some no," Tomas smiled. "But Leeland told me an amusing story."

"What was it?"

"The young men we rescued started this adventure dreaming that they were outnumbered nearby 17 to one by their female companions… Something like living in paradise according to one teen Leeland heard speaking to his friends."

"And now?"

"Now the dream is a nightmare. They're _outnumbered_ nearly 17 to one. According to Leeland, some of them are in hiding."

"You're kidding."

"Actually I am, more or less. That side of things is shaping up pretty well. Most of them don't want a casual frak, they want something to replace the families they lost. They want to _belong._"

"They're lucky, than." Diana frowned as she looked into the CIC.

"They are that." Tomas didn't say anything else for a moment and then quietly said, "I had not expected to outlive my grand children."

"Right." With a visible effort, Diane got back to the business of the day. "We've got Alecto squadron out."

Nodding, Tomas looked at the CIC. The problem was that no matter how many simulators you had, small craft _had_ to have air time. The squadron was made up of some of the Sidewinder jump bombers they'd found in the Hera, with a few more produced by the fleet's machine ships.

The Sidewinder had been something of a dead end. It was an oversized viper with a jump engine. Ideally, the plan was for it to jump into the enemy's face, launch its payload and jump back.

The problem was two fold. Firstly, the fleet had moved closer to the idea that fighters and bombers were to _directly_ support the fleet rather than launch long range attacks. Secondly, even with a rear firing cannon and somewhat heavier armor than a viper, the Sidewinder was vulnerable to enemy CAP and obviously the vipers couldn't follow it through FTL. So the Sidewinder had been increasingly relegated to reserve depots.

_But not us._ The fleet wasn't attacking, it was running. The Sidewinders added another long-ranged threat to the cylon's forces and more importantly, they could be escorted by gunships and raptors.

And the cold equations stated that losing a Sidewinder and its two man crew was less painful than taking a hit to a battlestar.

"Nice intervals…" Tomas commented.

"Too tight," Diane said.

"I thought you liked tight intervals?"

"On ships? Yea. Those pilots have to leave themselves room to maneuver."

"Give them time. They have..what? Two pilots who did this before the war?"

"Close. Three."

"Than better too much by the book now than too little. We can always train them to know when bending the rules is okay. The opposite can be harder."

* * *

Fleet Assembly, Civilian Liner Davos

The Davos had been a large liner before the war, complete with several environmental domes for passengers who mostly stayed on board. Now, fitted with light AA armament, Leeland Jakes had taken it for the civilian seat of government.

_It's a show of course. Tomas has the guns. Hell, Tomas is the reason we're all alive. He could overthrow me with a word._ But the Commodore had been very correct in his dealings, doing his best to keep Leeland informed of what was going on, and always requesting permission to come over. Leeland, for his part, never refused such permission.

It helped of course that Tomas had laid out his red lines in the beginning and hadn't changed them. His one comment had been that Leeland might be safer on one of the newer ships, but Leeland had demurred.

_We have people living in hot bunks. I have a suite here— I can't turn around and take a newer set of quarters. That's _not_ a precedent I want to set._

More importantly,the thought of moving all the machinery of government was daunting.

"The military is making use of young children!" The delegate from _Sam's Dream_ was stating, once again. Why they'd voted for her Leeland didn't know, but having agreed that every ship should have at least one delegate, he couldn't very well refuse her. At least she was on the wireless via tight beam rather than sitting in the room. In fact... Leeland fought the temptation to have another com malfunction. He couldn't play that trick very often.

_And that's another reason to stick to this ship— the conference room isn't big enough for everyone, so I have a perfectly good reason to keep things to the people who know what the frak their doing. _

"Delegate Sinda," he finally interrupted her monologue. "They are. As are children here. We have twelve year olds mixing the soil brought up from the ship with sterile soil in order to produce feed stock for the farms. We have younger children learning how to knit to help their parents keep clothing in order. We cannot, and you cannot believe how much I hate to say this, allow our children the leisurely childhood we had. We just cannot. We must make use of every one of our resources. Human resources are primary among them. If a child can do a job, it frees up an adult to do the job the child can't. And that maximizes the chance that the child will live to become an adult."

"And being protected from joining the military isn't what most of the kids are worried about," the delegate from one of the ore ships said. "I got a petition from some 13 year olds arguing that if 15 is early enough to start flight training, why not 13?"

"What did you say?" another delegate asked.

"Told 'em I'd take it up with the Commodore."

"What did _he_ say?"

"By the time we get enough vipers for 'em, they'll _be_ 15." A chuckle ran around the room.

"But that brings in another question," Leeland said. "We have civilian representation— what about the military assets? Their crews have no delegates."

"They have the Commodore, and that trumps any authority we have."

"Yes, but the Commodore isn't a representative. He's a commander. I think we should open discussions with him to see about them electing their own representatives to the fleet."

"That could be dicey— it could be seen as a way around his authority." One of the Belter delegates said. "When an airlock blows out, you don't have an election to see who is going to close it." he quoted the old saying. "We don't want to risk diluting the Commodore's ability to give orders."

"Agreed. But it'd also help prevent any sort of…division forming between the civilian and military components." Leeland raised his hand at the half formed protests. "We're going to be on the road for a long, long time. People love the fleet _now_ but a year from now? Ten years from now? What about when we get military personnel with civilian dependents on the fleet? I think for once it'd be nice if we headed a crisis off rather than waiting for it to hit us."

* * *

_Battlestar Hera: Flag Quarters. _

_How much longer can we stay here?_ Tomas wondered. The area was wonderful…but it was also the edge of a volcano. Raptors and cutters kept watch on the edge of the cloud, which was a risk in and of itself. The temptation to stay, just a few more months or years was tremendous… but the cylons were out there. It would be madness to assume they didn't have stealth technology so there was the danger that they could already _be_ here, just watching and silently plotting the ship's location. Oh it was _unlikely_ that they could do so without being detected…

But it had been equally unlikely that the mighty Twelve Colonies could be brought low in less than a day.

_But equally, moving out endang-_

"Action stations, Action Stations, this is not a drill. Set condition one throughout the ship. Repeat, this is not a Drill."

Tomas was on his feet and moving for CIC before the echoes faded.

"What is it Captain?" he asked.

Diane was looking up at the CIC monitor. "Raptor— it's not squawking a transponder signal, but we got a good look at the jump ingress and it's a raptor or something with the same type of engine."

"The people on the surface?"

"They've gone dark."

Tomas nodded. "We have a problem captain. If they're cylon, this region is no longer safe. If they're not, we need a way to immediately let them know we're not, so they don't jump away."

"We could send Colonial challenges…"

"By this time, every old code is compromised. Oh we will, but we need something immediately obvious. I'm thinking of something a little more… unusual." Tomas turned to Diane and smiled. "You were saying you wanted some more exercises, Captain…"

* * *

_Galactica Raptor._

"You know what this is?" Racetrack said. "It's habitable… we may have just-"

Suddenly the DRADIS console started screaming with every alarm it had and some it didn't.

"DRADIS ALERT!" Skulls yelled.

"You think!?" Racetrack snarled. "Where are they? Spin up the FTL and get us out of here-"

"We're getting Colonial challenges?" Skulls said.

_Yeah, just another cylon trick. _

"Just give me their location." Racetrack said as she focused on the jump prep.

"Uh…look right up through the windshield." Skulls finally said in a curiously calm voice.

"Wh-oh. Frak. Me." Racetrack said. The light dimmed as the sun was obscured by the gigantic battlestar that must have jumped in right above them. The gigantic battlestar with lots and lots of _guns_ that were pointed right at them.

"We're getting a com request."

"Really."

_"Colonial raptor, this is the Battlestar Hera. Now, you're probably looking human, but then, so are cylons anymore. You've got no nukes, so I'd be very pleased if you'd land in our port top bay… without any sudden moves."_

"Who am I speaking to?" Racetrack asked.

_"Commodore Tomas Markson. What ship are you off of?"_

"Sir, I'm afraid I can't give that information to you." Racetrack said. "At least not until I've had the chance to verify your…human nature."

"_Cautious. That's commendable. Very well."_

"Skulls," Racetrack said. "You make certain that you're ready to blow the nav computer all to hell. If we see cylons, I'm not giving them a chance to find the fleet."

"Right."

_A habitable planet and a battlestar…so long as it isn't full of cylons… pretty good luck for a pair of frak ups._

TBC


	15. Reunion

_Private Log: Commodore Markson_

_Well Racetrack and her crew were fairly forthcoming once they noticed a lack of glowing red eyes among the landing crew. The rescue mission was ballsy, but on the other hand, using a cylon— or more specifically, using an organic cylon in any capacity save "target practice" is going to go over like a lead balloon with most of my people. I hope that Adama knows what he's doing. We're leaving the Hera here, and I'm riding out with them. Diane hates the idea, but I really don't want to risk moving the large ships out of the cloud. _

* * *

"Jump clock set," the pilot said, and Tomas nodded. They were following Racetrack's raptor, but Tomas was in a marine jump capable transport along with a number of others. The raptor would jump in first, warn the fleet and then his ship would jump in… out of immediate weapons range, just in case.

"_Galactica Raptor_ just jumped," the copilot noted.

"Confirmed. Give us a two minute countdown."

"Ready."

_And Adama an Admiral? Racetrack had said they have Pegasus with 'em, but no mention of Cain. Had she been killed in the attack?_

Of course, Cain's absence wasn't the oddest thing. President Laura Roslin probably had pride of place for that.

_Problem is, I don't know her. _Tomas remembered meeting her once at some ceremony but beyond shaking her hand, he hadn't even spoken to her. Still, from Racetracks' admittedly incomplete discussion she appeared to have at least one aspect of a military leader down pat— she knew how to make decisions.

But again there were the odd gaps. Racetrack had gone between talking about everything to the same sort of embarrassed pauses that you got when someone asked if your father had started drinking again. An embarrassing family issue that you didn't want aired in public.

Tomas hadn't pushed. The fact of the matter was that the pilot was far too junior to be getting the unvarnished truth, especially if it was bad news. If there were problems, Tomas would get far more from talking to Adama than he would have by embarrassing a junior officer.

* * *

_Galactica_

"Jump signature!" Gaeta's announcement saw Admiral Adama look up.

_It's too soon for Starbuck…_

"It's one of ours sir. Racetrack's raptor."

"Open a channel." Adama picked up the wireless link and waited until the connection was made. "This is Galactica Actual. What happened."

"We had a misjump sir…but you wouldn't believe who we found. We've got another ship jumping in behind us."

"Colonial?"

"Yes sir. In fact, Commodore Markson said that he hopes you've been treating _Galactica _nicely."

"Tomas Markson?"

"Yes sir."

"Mr. Gaeta," Adama told the officer, "There's another craft due to jump in. All ships to hold fire."

"Another ship?" Saul Tigh asked.

"Tomas."

"_Tomas?_ Gods, it's been almost 5 years since I last saw him…"

"We've got other ships jumping in," Gaeta paused. "They're showing Colonial ID. Four T_yphoon _class landers. Adama raised his eyebrows at that. Tomas had headed up a fleet support group. What was he doing with top of the line marine landers?

"The lead ship is signaling us,"

"Put me on," Adama said. Then, "Commodore Markson? This is Adama."

"I see your flying your flag on Galactica, Admiral. No taste for the bigger ship I see?"

"I prefer _Galactica_ to the _Pegasus._"

"And I bet there's a story behind that." Tomas' voice turned humorous. "But I bring gifts— I've got 50 damage control and refit specialists for you— I figure you might like your landing pods back, unless you've gotten attached to the museum."

"You have your ships?"

"That and more, but we should probably talk about that in person. I don't trust coms, even encrypted ones for them." Tomas paused. "But It's good to see you Bill. "

"And you," Adama replied.

* * *

When the first of the landers was lowered to the hanger Deck, Adama was there along with President Roselin. Racetrack had landed first and they'd verified that she was human. In fact, right now Racetrack and her crew were in sickbay with Doc Cottle looking over them.

When the door opened, Tomas walked, wearing a dress uniform, just as Adama and Tigh were in their dress Uniform. Tomas saluted the flag and then saluted Adama.

"Admiral Adama, I surrender my command to you."

"I accept your command, Commodore Markson," Adama smiled. "I hadn't expected to see you ever again, Tomas."

"The same went for you, Bill." Turning to Laura, Tomas nodded respectfully. "Madam President. When your pilots told us that the civilian government had survived we all rejoiced at the news."

"Thank you Commodore Markson. There was rejoicing here— or will be when the rest of the ships hear the news. I hope you can spare some assistance for the civilian ships."

For a moment, Adama saw surprise flicker at Laura's tone. Markson's thoughts were plain. What Colonial officer _wouldn't_ render aid?

_Racetrack didn't tell him about Cain. _He'd have to rectify that error. Tomas shouldn't be blindsided by the attitudes Cain's actions had helped create.

"Before anything else, I was wondering if you could tell us how many civilian survivors you were able to recover," Laura continued.

"WE have about 27,000. That includes the 9000 odd prisoners we liberated from the cylons, but…" Markson's eyes widened at something behind Bill and Laura.

"CYLON!" Tomas shouted. Adama spun around as he and the commodore pushed Laura behind them even as Tigh produced a weapon. For a moment Adama thought that Tomas _had_ to be wrong. The priest they were looking at was himself looking around in shock.

"A cylon? Me?" He said. "You've got to be joking-"

"I have about forty copies of you sitting in the morgue," Tomas said softly. Now the cylon as the focus of nearly a dozen marines, carefully approaching him.

"I'm not a fraking cylon-"

"Take it away," Adama snarled.

"Sorry Bill, I had the photo's but I didn't want to risk Racetrack bumping into the wrong people if you were infiltrated."

"How many?" Laura asked.

"Seven different models, and no idea how many more their might be… forgive me Madam President, but the "there are twelve models" Racetrack told me about could very well be disinformation." He lowered his voice, taking advantage of the loudly protesting 'priest' being removed from the deck. "Not that I think it's a good idea to broadcast that. The last thing we need is people deciding the jerk who snores is a cylon."

"We've had that situation," Laura said. "But I think it might be wise to adjourn to the Admiral's cabin for a debriefing in a more private setting."

"Yes Ma'am," Tomas said.

"Tigh, get Tomas' people set up. Give them anything they need."

"If they can get the hanger bay working I'll give them my last drink," Tigh replied.

* * *

_Laura Roslin had been the secretary of education?_ Tomas didn't shake his head at the idea of her becoming president, and not just because nobody else was left. President Roslin was far more impressive than most officials he'd met. Her questions were incisive and she missed little. Bill filled in the military side of things, but otherwise as was his habit, listened more than he spoke.

But their mannerisms paled before the story of Galactica's flight.

_This is why we were so lucky and the cylons so spread out. _The information about the cylon deployments was one thing, the story of the relentless pursuit of the _Galactica _another thing.

_Why were they so obsessed with this ship?_

Finally, when they were finished, Tomas shook his head. "I hate to say it, but the thing that stands out is Cain. I knew she was a bit…brittle given her experiences in the war, but I never expected her to actually abandon Colonial citizens." He paused. _"_Bill, I notice that you have Lee in command."

"He's shaping up."

"But he's never taken command school. I'm not saying he's not a good commander, but that implies you didn't fully trust the rest of the _Pegasus_ crew…is that going to be a problem?"

"It wasn't just Admiral Adama," Roslin said. "The civilians in the fleet had certain issues with the _Pegasus _crew."

"I can see why."

"Well now we have another battlestar…" Roslin mused.

"Sort of." Tomas said. "We've got more ships than you, but less crews and I can't pull crewmembers off the cruisers… not if they are to remain combat capable… If you have anyone you can spare Admiral?"

The Gaze Adama sent Tomas was quelling. "Galactica isn't exactly swimming in spare crew,_"_

"Well, we've got hands— untrained ones, but the cylons helped us out by collecting the youngest and fittest."

"That doesn't make sense. I didn't make sense when Starbuck talked about the farms…" Roslin shrugged. "And it still doesn't."

"The fact that they can't produce children, and yet can produce entire clones that have downloaded minds?" Tomas replied. "Our own people said the same things— Gods, they should be able to _duplicate_ their people— come up with any number they need, just by downloading multiple copies."

"And you're building ships…" Laura shook her head in amazement. "We had never even considered the possibility."

"It wouldn't have helped— you've got, what about two flattops? Civilian ships don't have the full range of equipment our ships do and the _Pegasus'_ small craft and fighter shops are focused on producing just that— small craft and fighters. A general production line is a big, big, thing." Tomas frowned. "Please don't over estimate our capabilities, Madam President. We don't have the people _or_ production capacity to match the cylons. This is just going to help us run a bit faster and in more comfort."

"If we run… the Colonial Election is coming up," Laura said and frowned. "And I have to expect that Baltar and Tom Zarak may make the issue of the planet important."

"Baltar was an egotistical jerk," Tomas said. "But Zarak? If you've dealt with him, then you have to know how smart he is. Would he accept a short term boost in power to play second fiddle to a man who… is unsuited to leadership in any way, shape or form…which would likely end with cylon bombs landing in his office?"

"You've dealt with Baltar before?" Laura asked. "You seem to have definite opinions on him."

"The CNP program wasn't his first contribution— he came up with a "revolutionary" FTL jump system, or rather his company did. He handled the computer control system. I was pulling a tour as BuShips' man on the site."

"Oh?" Roslin asked.

"It was a catastrophe. I doubt the system would have ever worked— it demanded at least a half-dozen breakthroughs in widely separated areas of technology, but Baltar was all it needed. The man was fundamentally incapable of realizing that other people could contribute or might be right…" Tomas paused. "The problem is that as brilliant as he is and make no mistake, he _is_ brilliant, he's the worst _manager_ I've ever seen— and that's 90 percent of the job of a president or admiral. Managing other people."

"He's not going to have to manage anything," Adama said grimly. "The people are tired of being in space."

"Bill, that's lunacy and you know it." Tomas frowned then continued. "Madam president, I won't claim that what I've heard isn't cause for…" he paused, "concern." _Like you're making policy based on visions. _"But that world will never, ever be able to support a population that could defend itself— hell, we'd be better off just building habitats in the asteroid belt and using it for biomass— at least that way we could control the weather a bit better."

"Bad weather?" Laura asked, raising one eyebrow.

"The plant has a _slow _axial wobble. Summer and winter are both about a year long. Right now it's got about six months until winter."

"But Baltar won't have to fix that until everyone is on the ground and it's too late to change their minds." Roslin said. "I hate to bring up politics, but how do you think you're people will vote." Adama briefly looked at her, and Roslin continued. "I am not asking you to influence their votes, Commodore Markson, simply give your opinion on how they would vote."

Tomas paused. _C'mon Bill, you need to be telling her that it doesn't matter _how_ they'll vote, nobody is making a home on that deathtrap. _But on the other hand, Cain hadn't exactly left Adama with a strong hand, and Tigh's tenure in office hadn't helped either.

"Well, here's the problem Madam President." The Canceron refugees are still in running mode. They don't want to stick around because they think, and with good reason, that the cylons are still looking for them. They feel safe because every ship they're on can _run away._ They're also less ragged then your lot— we had the advantage of more in the way of long duration space lift." Then Tomas made a fist. "The _Belters_ on the other hand, spent centuries being screwed by Aerilon and after the cylon war, the Quorum confined itself to shaking a disapproving finger in the general direction of Aerilon. Sometimes a _very_ disapproving finger…but ultimately they got no help. To them, the fact that Tom Zarek is backing Baltar? That's going to be a big deal— then there's the fact that we have our own government. It's not…coequal, not like your government, since I've always made it plain that ultimately the military is in charge of any major decisions, but the people are invested in it. Some of them— a _lot_ of them are going to ask why should they have 12 representatives and a president when some of those coequal representatives have only a handful of constituents. Put bluntly, it could turn into a real mess."

Roslin looked at him, and Tomas could see the thoughts running behind her eyes. _Of course, I've changed the political equation— suddenly there are over 27,000 new civilians, and with military that brings it up to just under 32,000. _

_"_I would suggest that we postpone the election for at least a few weeks— it would take that long to establish an acceptable protocol for voting among my own fleet, and I'd have to assume that both Baltar and Tom Zarek would agree to that, given that it would give _them_ a chance to talk to their voters."

"I think that would be very wise, and it would give us time to integrate the survivors being brought back from the colonies."

"About that, Bill, can we trust the cylon?"

"She's angry after the death of her child…" Adama paused. "So I don't know. We didn't have any other option."

"If we could spread that FTL trick across the fleet…" Tomas frowned in thought.

Adama shook his head. "According to Sh- the cylon, they can't link the heavy raider's computer to anything much larger than a raider."

"Still, we could use it on the dropships… there have to be more people on the colonies… even if we can't stick around, we could dramatically increase our chance of survival."

"Maybe, but even with the drive, it increases our chances of being detected."

"True." _Especially if this cylon has a way of sending signals to her friends. _Adama had many good qualities, but some of them weren't without problems. Adama was _very_ loyal to his crew and the people he came to like, sometimes more than he should be. There were political reasons why he hadn't made Admiral, but also very pragmatic ones— one named "Tigh" came to mind. The admiralty, as far as Tomas knew, had been concerned that the Commander hadn't seen Tigh's weaknesses and either motivated him to fix them, or eased him out— and the Colonel's performance when he _had_ been placed in command bore out the judgment of the now dead staff at BuPers. _Are you letting the fact that this cylon wears the face of a crew member you knew affect your judgment?_

"Regardless, It's a blessing that we've found you, Commodore," Roslin finally said. "And that you'll be second in command I take it?"

"Yes," Adama said. "Lee's got his hands full with the _Pegasus_ and your line commanders don't have the rank or experience." Turning to the President, "Madam President, I also think you need to approve a promotion for _Hera's _CO."

"Diane will like that," Tomas said. He frowned, "But Bill, we need to give the CO of the _Gilford_ a promotion— Diane needs the promotion to keep _Hera_, but she's not yet ready to handle a fleet, so he needs to be ahead of her in the chain of command."

"Vice commodore than?" Vice commodore was a rare rank, usually given for a single deployment for someone who was due to make admiral, but for various reasons couldn't get the official promotion through yet. Mostly used in the first cylon war it was nearly unknown now.

"That'd work," Tomas said.

_One problem down, a billion to go._ Tomas thought. Maybe the fleets would unify without any problems.

_And maybe I'll start shitting tylium._ Baltar was going to be a problem. Baltar could be charismatic, was good looking, smart… _And absolutely without any common sense…or for that matter an ability to understand that the universe doesn't revolve around Gaius Baltar… of course, he's running against a woman who has seen visions. _

Which was another problem. Tomas could think of many reasons for visions…but throughout the conversation he'd been having one reoccurring thought.

_A technology that could upload a mind over interstellar distances should have _absolutely_ no problem sending visual stimuli to a brain… especially if the owner of said brain was already primed to see such stimuli as visions from the gods. _

Tomas smiled as he took Roslin's hand. "As I said, Madam President, we rejoiced at the news of your survival, and I expect great things to come of this reunion of our fleet."

TBC


	16. Resting in a Cloud

Resting in a Cloud

* * *

President Laura Roslin looked out the porthole of Colonial One at the behemoth escorting her ship. For the first time since the Fall, it was not _Galactica _or _Pegasus._ Instead it was the Battlestar _Hera_. The decision to bring the fleet into the cloud had been made soon after the Caprican resistance forces had returned. Laura looked down at the report Kara had typed.

"_It was odd— the toasters ambushed us but their accuracy was crap. They actually shot nearly two dozen organics, including a model Sharon pointed out— we were going to let him board the ship and bring him back for intelligence purposes, but nope, the toasters blew him away. You'd almost think they were _fragging_ their own commanders…"_

"Curious," Laura said, looking over at her aide, Tory Foster. "It's not like the cylons to be so…chaotic."

"We could use all the luck we can get, Ma'am." Foster pointed out.

"You're right Tory," Laura sighed and put the report down. "So, what's going on with the Fleet?"

"Well, Baltar has agreed to a three week delay in the election. That gives us plenty of time, but he's beating the drums to make the world our new home. He's started calling it "New Caprica."

Laura's lips thinned as she compared the world to the original Caprica. _Only the most rose colored glasses could make that comparison possible. _

"How is it doing?"

"Among our people? Very good. Markson's squadron, not so good." Tory replied. "But then they've got more in the way of resources."

"They certainly do…" Laura smiled. "Their ark ships… just incredible." Lara fell silent at the memory. The network of apartments and common living areas, even regions that had been set aside for stores and offices…and then the long growing section, the inner hull where plants would grow, the lower levels full of hydroponic facilities, aquaponic fish farms… even some rabbit and chicken farms. She shook her head at the memory. Of course the Commodore, with a broad smile, had pointed out that as the highest ranking civilian official, the question of who got to move into the new ships was now squarely in her lap.

"But that brings up another question," Tory said. "The Abortion decree."

"What about it, Tory?"

"There have been some rumblings that it's obsolete."

"I'd have to say the rumblings are likely right," Laura said. During the tour she had seen many women who were visibly pregnant. "If anything I think we'll need to look to the future on that." _Gods. Before the war that many teenage pregnancies in one place would have been considered a catastrophe. _But of course now it was a matter of survival. Laura frowned. There was also the fact that there were no college careers that those teens would be missing out. Nor, in all probability their children. _For the foreseeable future, everyone's careers will be chosen for them. I wonder, will we realize that's a temporary measure, or when we finally escape the cylons, will we be bound into that pattern of living. _

"Ma'am?"

"Having a child is only the first stage. After that comes raising the child." Laura said. "Are we going to have schools or apprenticeships and how will they be administered?"

"Good point— but the thing is, if we retract the decree… we'll lose most of the religious vote."

"Will we? Baltar has been running on an explicitly pro-choice platform…"

"Maybe, but we should probably hold off until after the election…"

"Agreed."

"Second question—what do we do about their assembly?" Tory asked. "It's nothing like the Colonial government."

"No…but it's something I want to encourage and give real power."

"Ma'am?"

"I know, It seems odd for a politician to take measures that might harm her own power," Roslin sighed and rubbed her eyes. "But then the Gods remind me that next term Baltar could be sitting in this seat…"

"That's a good point,"

"It is, but it's not the only one. We need the Quorum, to remind us of home, and who we are…but equally we need a body that will represent the people as they are now. I think this assembly is what we need."

"It shouldn't be hard to conduct elections…" Tory frowned. "But the Assembly meets on the _Davos_. Should we change that?"

"No, I think it would make the fact that they're likely to become coequal more apparent if we don't force them to share space with the Quorum." Abruptly Roslin laughed. "And in any case, I can't think of a better definition of "critical mass" than having both groups on the same ship."

"Speaking of critical mass," Tory continued. "The press wants to tour the _Galactica_ to see the changes."

"I'll save them the trouble. The Admiral isn't interested in having extraneous people on his ship." Roslin smiled. "But he's happier than I've seen him ever before."

The Galactica had, within minutes of being jumped into the cloud, started playing host to Tomas' engineering crews, belter work parties and everyone else who could be spared. In fact, the other construction projects had largely been placed on hold. Roslin smiled as she remembered the sight of Bill's face as the museum window had been cut loose, even as other work parties started prepping the viper launch tubes. Perhaps most impressively, the plated over silos where the _Galactica's _First Cylon War era cannon mounts had been opened up and the construction bays were working night in day to create the new turrets that would fill those mounts. It would be several months— perhaps longer, but if they got the time, the next basestar that attacked _Galactica_ would be in for a very nasty surprise indeed.

_Baltar's wrong— this can't be our permanent home, but by the Gods, being able to just take a break has helped us so much. It's given us a chance to breath and think further into the future. To act, rather than react._

* * *

"You're fraking me." Adama glared at the data sheets. Markson had come over on a raptor without sending a message first, and one look at him had convinced Adama the conversation needed to take place in private.

"Nope. We were running stress tests on Cloud Nine and they include checking for weak points in the radiation shielding— and they picked up radiation. Looked strange so the supervisor gave it a second look. It's radiation from plutonium dust and the analysis is plain. It's one of our nukes, Bill." Tomas didn't bother to mention how serious that could be. The _Cloud Nine_ had been quietly moved from the center of the fleet. Fortunately, only the bridge crew needed to be told that.

"Do you know where it is?"

"We managed to triangulate and the primary source of radiation is likely in one of the luxury passenger suites. I've got my crews tromping around checking for mold build ups in the corridors… they're going to discover a very nasty breed indeed that can lead to severe pneumonia. It's a way we can get a closer location on it without letting whoever has it know we're looking."

"Do you think they know we can track it?" Adama asked.

"Maybe. The equipment is complex, which is why you didn't have it, but honestly, yeah, they should at least be thinking of the possibility," Tomas replied.

"That can't justify an emergency evacuation," Tigh said. "You might as well send whoever has the bomb a note telling them we discovered it."

"Not an emergency one, but that mold? Every doctor will tell you it's especially dangerous to children, pregnant women and individuals with chest infections or compromised immune systems." Tomas shrugged. "So we can get the most vulnerable population off the ship."

"How do we get the bomb secured?"

"I'd say use the CMS people— they're cops, not military, but they've got high threat insertion teams that are trained for this," Tomas replied.

_"_Good point," Adama said. "Tigh, get Ralen on the wireless and tell him to get set up and for the gods' sake keep it quiet."

"Right Bill,"

After Tigh left, Tomas frowned at Adama. "Second question: where the hell did they get a nuke— one of _our_ nukes."

"I have a thought, but we can't act on it," Adama replied. "Not until we have the nuke secured. WE _can't_ risk whoever has it learning that we're on to them."

"You're right there." Tomas rapped a knuckle on the desk for emphasis. "Even if they can't trigger an actual nuclear detonation, they'd make a terrible mess of the ship." He frowned. "As it is, after this is all over we're probably going to have to pull everyone off the ship and do a full purge and decom. Whoever has that nuke does _not_ understand what a nasty bastard plutonium can be."

"Let's get it first, then we can worry about clean up," Adama said.

TBC.


	17. Hunting for Atomic Souvenirs

"A bomb? A frakking nuclear _bomb?_" Talatha Siam said in disbelief. "Did they lose anything else? Maybe the Cylon Queen?"

"Enough Talatha," Relan said. "In case you haven't looked at their ships, they've had a few other issues plaguing their minds. Galactica's had to use their pilots as marines because they didn't have enough skilled ground combat specialists. In any case, our job isn't to point fingers, but to get that bomb back."

"Is it active?" his forced entry officer asked.

"We don't know. We have to assume it is— as a dirty bomb, if nothing else."

"Frak." Talatha said. "I'll get my team together."

* * *

Later, not in combat gear but in an entirely too cumbersome biosuit and respirator, Talatha walked the halls of the Cloud Nine and tried to ignore the fact that she could die at any point. The equipment she carried looked like biological sensors, but Tomas' engineers had ripped out the guts and replaced them with directional radiation sensors. Over the past hour they'd checked bathrooms, vent shafts and annoyed more than a few people, all under the pretext of checking for…hazardous substances.

Well, it wasn't a lie.

"Boss," her com's came alive. "We've pretty well nailed it down. Room 223. 11th floor."

"That's a suite, isn't it."

"Yeah, and when one of our guys walked past it, on his way to the 12th floor, there were a few meaty bruiser types outside the door."

_Which may mean they don't intend to detonate it yet… or it could mean they're crazy enough to not care._

"I understand. Make the announcement."

Moments later, the mellow voice of the announcer (entirely out of place when you considered that it was the end of the world), informed the inhabitants of the 10th floor that they could expect company…and that the 12th floor should expect it in about 2 hours.

_Good_. Hopefully they'd be relaxing now, realizing that the official types were focusing on another floor. Give them about an hour, and their vigilance should be at its lowest.

"How do we do this?"

"Go in through the floor and roof." Talatha said. It was nearly a law of nature— most people never bothered to consider that a ship, like the space around it, was 3d in nature. The 10th floor would be more or less abandoned and the 12th floor would be chaotic, full of people getting ready to leave (or hiding materials they didn't want anyone else to find). "First step— we need observation to see if the damned thing is operational."

"Understood."

* * *

A half-hour later, Talatha was looking at a picture of the weapon. They'd used a fiber optic camera guide to shoot a picture from the ventilation shaft. There was a blond woman sitting in the room, next to a half disassembled weapon.

"I doubt it would detonate from the look out the outer case…" the bomb disposal expert said. "Can't be certain because we can't directly look at the fissile material and explosive core…but even if it doesn't achieve a nuclear detonation it'd make the ship a write-off, that's for certain."

"Well, at least there's only one…oh shit. Oh _Shit,_" Talatha said.

"What?"

"Look at the profile of the face."

"Yeah?"

Talatha pulled out a picture. "Look familiar?"

"Oh frak me. She's a _Blondie?_"

"Looks like." Talatha growled. _Call home or go on?_ An organic cylon changed things, but talking about it, even on the most secure frequency…

"We go. I'll Shoot the Blondie— lethal force."

"We could get information-"

"-or a nuclear detonation," Talatha said. "We don't know how good these things are about shrugging off pain. In fact, I'll shoot her before we start the entry."

"Dead man switch?"

Talatha shook her head. "No. Why would they? They've had plenty of chances to blow the place up with everyone from the President to Admiral Adama on board… so they don't intend to use it and that means a dead man switch would be an accident waiting to happen."

* * *

Gina sat in front of the bomb. It wasn't fully operational yet, but even so, she spent hours looking at it. She would have worked harder to detonate it, but there had been no certainty that it would keep her from being resurrected. The other cylons talked about the advantages of immortality. Gina knew better. It was a trap, a hell.

And she-there was a tiny sound above her.

* * *

Talatha hated crawlspaces. They were just designed to ensure that you could get killed in any number of stupid ways. Fortunately, the Blondie hadn't noticed her moving directly over her and positioning her gun according fiber optic cable guide. Unfortunately, there was no way to muffle the shot which was why she should be hearing something else any moment as the entry flash-bangs were dropped into the outer rooms.

* * *

Gina's attention was distracted by the sound of explosions erupting through the outer rooms. Her dazed mind had just enough time to realize that they were flash bangs, not regular grenades when three malignant pops sounded from above.

Gina's brain never had a chance to process the sounds as the three slugs obliterated it, giving her the release she'd so dearly wished for.

* * *

_Galactica_.

"You screwed up, Officer Siam," Tigh growled. "For all we know she's handing the coordinates of the fleet to the frakking cylon high command!"

Talatha didn't say anything. You didn't talk back when a superior officer was dressing you down.

Even if he was a prick.

"Excuse me Colonel Tigh," Commander Relan said frostily. "Would you prefer to lose the Cloud Nine? The jump coordinates were kept secret and unless she had penetration into the bridge crew, she couldn't tell them more than we're in a cloud. Even though the bomb wasn't ready for detonation, the conventional explosives would have been enough to render the ship uninhabitable. I doubt the cylons would get anything useful out of this." The unspoken statement was missed by none of the officers. Relan wasn't about to let one of his people get dressed down by _Galactica's_ XO.

"Well we won't know that, now will we!" Tigh started up when Adama cleared his throat.

"Things don't always go the way we want them to go, but this went far better than it could have. If she'd had a chance to donate the bomb, the Cloud Nine would be gone and she'd still be back reporting."

"That's not our biggest problem now, Admiral," Tomas said quietly. The room was clear of civilian personnel and taking the hint, Talatha saluted the Admiral. "Permission to return to my ship, sir?"

"Granted. And good work. To you _and_ your team," Adama said.

"Thank you sir!"

Tomas waited until she was gone. "Baltar either gave a cylon a nuke or he lost one. Even odds on which it was."

"Well the skinjob can't tell us and the rest of the terrorists…" Tigh growled in disgust. "They'd tell us Baltar was some sort of frakking Imperious Leader if they thought it would save their skins."

"Does it matter?" Relan said. "Losing a nuke… doesn't matter why, he put the entire fleet at risk."

"We're not free to use that," Adama replied.

"Politics." Tigh made the word sound like a curse.

"Politics, Colonel," Tomas replied. "Everyone knows that the leadership doesn't like Baltar… and suddenly and _very_ conveniently, we come up with a crime that has all the juicy bits— carelessness threatening the fleet! Possible collaborations with the cylons! A cylon who was with Baltar on _Pegasus…_" He sighed. "And who is also very conveniently _dead_ so she can't contradict anything we might say."

"We can't leave him in charge— my Gods…" Relan shook his head. "Can you imagine that?"

Tomas nodded. "That man would be a disaster as president, but we can't just haul him to prison, not without completely discrediting ourselves. The civilians would simply assume the civilian leadership was a rubber stamp and Baltar was a brave crusader against tyranny."

"I'm having Baltar and Zarek brought to the _Galactica," _Adama said. "I'm going to make them an offer."

"And if they refuse?"

"They won't."

TBC


End file.
